Here at HumanitZ we give out presents early. We've been working on getting you a small patch out before we all enjoy Christmas.
This patch focuses on fixing some issues to give a better overall experience. With the launch of the Violent Night Update, there were some things done to help the game to account for higher player counts, some of which have had a slight impact on the performance of lower numbers for player-hosted games so we have fixed issues to give those affected a better overall experience. We have also addressed some other issues that came up late in testing and were found by you the player. We could not fix everything that's been logged over the last few days, but we have a nice list ready for the New Years patch so thanks for everyone reaching out about the game.
Again we thank you all for the support and passion you are showing for HumanitZ. It helps drive us every day so thank you. We have sooo much awesome stuff coming in 2024 we can't wait to get it out there!
Dedicated server info: All official servers will be receiving the latest patch at the time of the update so please allow for 30 minutes before joining any online servers while the update finishes. All private owners of a server will also need to restart their servers to receive the latest patch.
Have a great Christmas and New Year Big Love HumanitZ Team
What this patch includes:
Smoother looking player movement for local hosted clients.
Fixes for teleporting Zombies.
Zeeks now react to vehicle sound on dedicated servers.
Fixes for the dog companion (Health regens when fed, fixes for on player death and the dog finding the player).
New “Heel” command for the dog to keep him by your side.
Mine moved from the build menu to crafting at the workbench (so it can then be placed).
Tracers added to help with gun fire direction.
Windows OS private server files now available via SteamCMD from the Default Branch.
New mesh and Icon for advanced lock.
For those playing HumanitZ right now, your feedback is INCREDIBLY important to us, we take notes on everything you tell us. If you would like to leave us feedback in the form of a Steam review, it helps us tremendously. You can also join our Discord below to connect with other players, and to follow along with our development.
Today Hero's Story is one step closer to release. New update adds a third boss, in-game cutscenes and localization system. Also, the size of the game installation files has been reduced by almost half - and nothing has been cut from the game! This is an important update that fixes many significant bugs, removes some restrictions and generally makes life better for players!
As always you will find the full list of changes below. I hope that you will enjoy this update :)
General
Game version was updated to 1.1 RC1
Main Menu was updated
The game will now slow down by 90 percent when opening service windows (for example, inventory)
Now players will be able to accumulate a total of more than 10,000 gold coins
Players will now be able to accumulate over 5,000 Glory Points
Ghosts will now drop Ectoplasm
Ghouls will now drop Ghoul's Eye
The 'Ally' section of the character screen has been changed to 'Origin'
The 'Credits' section in the main menu is temporarily disabled for additional filling
Changed (updated) names of some monsters
Aligned all location names in the UI
Tooltips on loading screens and in the game itself have also been aligned
Updated icon for the Queen's Poison
Additions
New boss: Fallen Knight Kriege
New location: Knight's Dungeon
New game mechanics: Cutscenes
Localization system was implemented in main menu
Added splash screen for full version
New loading screens were added to the game
Added new Glory Points ranks
Added new items and sounds
New items also appeared at merchants
Added 1 hidden Steam achievement
Added Ragdoll physics for some enemies and weapons
Added Auto Run hotkey (= key)
Added ability to change character's FOV
Added materials for the full version of the game
Balance
Defense bonuses for Glory Points ranks have been removed
Slightly increased the radius of displaying enemy health bars
Optimization
Removed some unused pieces of AI code
Optimized settings for some pickup items
Optimized game character animation settings
Removed unused UI elements
Removed some test items
Optimized number of game levels in the game build
Other
Changed death animations for skeletons and skeleton archers
Death Screen was slightly changed
Pumpkin Skeleton was removed from the game
Bugfixes
Fixed a critical bug where it was possible to re-find treasures after reloading the level
Fixed a critical bug where defeated enemies would revive after reloading the level
Fixed a bug where many sounds were playing too loud in some cases
Fixed a bug where some tooltips were appearing too often
Fixed a bug with portals not working in Temple of Dragons
Fixed a bug where it was impossible to close the inventory from controller
Fixed a bug where menu displayed incorrect control settings for the gamepad
Fixed a bug where some pop-up notifications were not fully visible on the screen
Fixed a bug where healing potions were not saved correctly due to an incorrect (similar) name
Fixed a bug where tooltips for pickup items would not appear on hover (they would only appear once)
Fixed an issue where new weapons were not properly damaging spiders and sand spiders
Lots of small fixes
And now let's take a closer look at some points.
OLD KNIGHT
The Kriege family crypt had once seen better days. Now this place is guarded only by king’s revived soldiers, restless servants and revived renegade magicians. They say that the old knight himself still wanders in dungeons of the family crypt in Expanse! Who can get into the dungeon and put ghost of the past to rest forever?
LOCALIZATION SYSTEM
In the new version game now will have a localization system. This means that players will now be able to change the language in game settings in the main menu. Localization affects in-game texts, interface and various materials. There are only two options available for now, but more languages may be supported in the future. The game itself will also try to determine most suitable language when you first launch the updated version.
IN-GAME CUTSCENES
In-game cutscenes play important role in any modern game. They designed to, for example, indicate the path, introduce a new enemy or a boss and also simply make the story more entertaining! It is worth noting that in the full version of Hero's Story there will be more in-game cutscenes. All in-game cutscenes are made using game engine.
Welcome to the Merry Christmas Event! The Christmas season has arrived in DarkStory, the Snowyland Village are back and is completely renewed, with new quests, exclusive items and new content.
Visit Snowyland talking with [Nebuno] at Esia City
Unlock exclusive prizes from Snowyland sellers'
Dig, cut and fish
Defeat the Big Snow Boss that will appear every week!
We have improved the texture management performance for paperdolls' textures Pins' icons on its interface has been reduces its size to fit with player info profile Player level cap has been increased from 69 to 70
[Christmas Sword IV] level requirement has been decreased from 72 to 70 (Temporary) [Christmas Wand IV] level requirement has been decreased from 72 to 70 (Temporary) [Christmas Bow IV] level requirement has been decreased from 72 to 70 (Temporary) [Christmas Daggers IV] level requirement has been decreased from 72 to 70 (Temporary)
Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for staying with us during the past couple of years. It's almost Christmas and PalmRide has been on Steam for mor than two years now (Now you got the chance to get that Christmas achivement).
For me personally, 2023 has been quite an interesting year in terms of game development. No update was made to PalmRide and no new game was released, BUT I can't underestimate the journey I went though this year as a game developer.
This 1-minute video summarizes the gamedev projects that I have worked on in 2023 (mostly stuff for college, remember that I'm a masters student):
Besides gamedev/ programing, I also changed a lot as a person in 2023, from adopting a more "grinder" mindset to discovering more philosophical concepts and learning more about Christianity. Anyway, this is not what the post is about, these things can be discussed on the Discord server.
You may remember The Galaxy Rider, the Crazy Taxi-like synthwave space game which I officially announced back in 2022 and created a Steam page for in 2023. Since the page was created, both my interest in the game but also community's interest started to fade away, so, during October I announced on Discord that I will stop working on that game for a while and instead focus on creating an experience that resembles PalmRide more.
The choice to postpone The Galaxy Rider was amplified by the fact that I struggled a lot with the spaceship movement, world generation and overall, I couldn't make the game fun. Until these problems are solved as I get better at game development, the game will remain postponed.
I then started prototyping with a retro Synthwave Star Fox-like game and I found myself quite enjoying it. I ditched Unity in favour of Raylib + EnTT and so far I'm enjoying this minimalistic way of making games. That drive I had when making PalmRide pretty much disappeared after the game had been released, and although I tried making games in the meantime, it kinda felt soulless in a way. This is how the things have been until I started this new game that I'm talking about.
Let's call this new game "StarRide" for a moment, as it currently don't have an official name. This is how the game looks like at the time of writing this post:
It's not much (but it's honest work hahahahaha using antique memes), but this features movement, world and biomes generation, path generation, path following, enemy systems, shooting systems, health systems and a few custom shaders for making the game look retro. This prototype was started in October, and now in December it's in a pretty decent state considering that I didn't work full time on this.
If things work out good, I might release the Steam page for this game during January or February 2024. Again, the name of the game was not set, so if you want, you might give me a name suggestion on the Discord server.
When I switched from Unity to Raylib + EnTT, I realized something: I'm bad at making games using game engines lol. The thing is, I'm much better at implementing my own functionalities into a game rather than modifying existing ones to suit my needs. I don't want to say that engines are bad, they aren't, it's just that I am more comfortable with implementing functionalities from scratch.
That being said, I may pick up again The Galaxy Rider in the future, but implement it without a high-level game engine, and instead use frameworks such as Raylib or MonoGame instead.
I now realize that I turned this Merry Christmas message intro an announcement/ devlog/ story post, but whatever... the more content, the better, right?
I want to again wish you Merry Christmas along with family and friends, and let's enjoy some games & synths in 2024!
- NEW PEN SYRINGES! They relieve various side effects and also give you some buffs.
- A MEGA HELMET! Seriously, it's huge.
And more animations! We now have new animations from the first and third person, now you can see how the character picks up something. Also more realistic camera shake when moving and running. + Standard bugfixes, fixing lights, new spawners and a new "rarity" parameter for loot.
AND REMEMBER, THERE WILL BE A PLAYTEST SOON! All previous updates will be ready for it, but we may not have time with first person animations. The playtest date will be announced later, stay tuned for more information
Winter in Japan is a mesmerising time of year when the country reveals its unique beauty. From December to February, Japan wraps itself in a chilly blanket of ice and snow and offers a remarkable variety of winter landscapes.
The mountains of Japan shine in brilliant white in winter. In the villages, the season creates a dignified and picturesque mood.
The traditional temples and shrines, covered in snow, lend the surroundings a distinctive atmosphere.
Overall, winter in Japan is a time of contrasts and the harmony of quiet beauty and sublime grandeur is equally enchanting.
As we are wrapping up 2023, let's unwrap some of the accomplishments and major developments for Gilded Destiny! This year, we saw a significant growth our community—for which we send our heartfelt gratitude to each of you! Our Discord community, in particular, has become a lively town hall where all things "Gilded" are discussed and questioned. Our YouTube channel has grown considerably to over 1k subscribers! And, on the content side, we have published Dev Diaries each month, detailing various features of the ongoing development process.
Looking forward to next year, we are planning to continue refining current feature sets, and adding a few additional features in order to round out Gilded Destiny to a fully playable state—at which point we look forward to sharing an Alpha version of the game with our community. Finally, we have a few activities, giveaways, and other announcements for all of you in store.
With that, I would like to thank all of you, and wish you a Gilded Christmas and New Year. Below, you'll find the script of the latest Dev Diary, narrated by Kenneth. Without further ado, I'll pass this on to Kenneth—
With Gilded Wishes, Marc
Script for Dev Diary 12:
Greetings, fellow industrialists! As we wrap up 2023, I hope this year has been productive, happy, and dare I say "Gilded." My name is Kenneth, one of the Co-founders of Aquila Interactive and the Executive Producer working on Gilded Destiny. Before we dive into today's topic, I want to express my gratitude, on behalf of everyone at Aquila, to all of you for being part of our community over the last year. We are humbled, encouraged, and excited by all of the feedback we continue to receive about the game development. I personally take great pleasure in responding to your comments, as Gilded Destiny is a passion project I have envisioned for some time. As always, please continue sharing suggestions, asking questions, and improving our vision of the game. So, don't hesitate to join our Discord and ask away!
The year is coming to an end, and as we are all settling in for the holiday, I think it is an essential time for us to highlight some of the progress we have made this year and what we have our sights set on going forward!
So, without ado, let's take a little look back in time. We published our first dev diary in November 2022 to outline our game vision. Back then, we had just managed to create the first version of our globe and had showed the first few screenshots to the community.
Fast forward to now, we have a largely functioning framework for most of the major features. Here are a few of them. First is the population system. You can see your subjects fulfill their needs, move between works, change their classes, or migrate elsewhere.
The second is building mechanics. You can place resource production facilities or factories in cities and across the provinces. For some of the buildings, you can even adjust their production formulas. See each of them jump to life, hiring workers, and purchasing input resources to put people to work and make a profit.
The third is trade. You can trade resources and industrial products across the world with realistic logistical calculations. Apply tariffs to resources as you see fit or adjust your national reserve for rainy days.
The fourth is finance. In the finance panel, you can manage the country's finances, from income to expenses. Setting a variety of income taxes to pay for your expenses.
The fifth is policies and decisions. You can set your national policies and pick decisions to initiate. You can read more about policies in our recent dev diary by our content designer John.
The sixth is leader mechanics. You can appoint leaders for various positions within your country. Each leader is free to fill various positions and not limited to a particular career path. How good they are at each, though, is another story.
Lastly, there is warfare. We now have a rough AI that can control your units for you and still allows you the flexibility to issue direct commands when appropriate.
From population, buildings (in both cities and provinces), trade, finances, policies, decisions, and warfare, they all function in the game at least at a basic level now. Of course, most of these are still quite rough, each with placeholder art and stats, and will need several rounds of rework and refinements before they are ready for anything public.
For example, here is a mockup of how we want to redesign the population tab to show off more information chronologically to give a better sense of progression. As we continue to test it among ourselves, many of these refinement changes will come in.
Looking forward to next year, besides continuing to refine our current feature sets, there are still a few features we need to add to our game to round out fully to a playable state. First is technology, which our team is currently busy working on. Second is a mechanism to influence culture and religions beyond just through local policies. Third is naval warfare. We plan to have these added in Q1 and Q2 next year.
In the coming months, we will go into more detail about each of the mechanics we showed today. So stay tuned!
If you find it all interesting, please wishlist Gilded Destiny on Steam, subscribe and join our Discord. We are constantly working diligently on the development of Gilded Destiny and striving to deliver a unique grand strategy gaming experience for all.
Until our paths converge once more, we bid thee farewell and a Gilded Day.
We at Virtual Arts Studio want to wish all of you and your families a very joyful Christmas, surrounded by all those you love, a fun New Year's Eve, and an energized start to the year, so that 2024 is full of health, achievements and lots of happiness!
Together we will make 2024 a year of many achievements and fun!
