Updates: - Some improvements have been done. - Some updates have been done in Turkish dubbing - Visual assets have been updated. - Some mistakes have been resolved in the level.
Let’s talk about procedural generation in this latest update.
As mentioned on its Steam Page, Times of Progress features procedural map generation. But how does it work exactly?
Whenever a new run is started, the map is procedurally generated just from a few high-level variables. These variables will be tweak-able by you in sandbox mode (although not in the beta).
Setting these variables determines how many Water, Rocks, Hill, Mountains, Forest etc etc tiles that can be found on the generated map. There will be some imbalance, but all resources will be found in some quantity on any map.
This imbalance in turn will determine which industries will be better to develop in the game. Being strong in a certain industry will help with trading with external AI-controlled cities later on to get in exchange those resources and materials that are not readily available or producible locally in your city.
Not everything is procedurally generated though. For example each Foresttile will always yield the same amount of Wood. Why? Because I don’t want you to spend time min-maxing forever the Wood yield by checking how much of it each Forest tile on the map (thousands of them...) will provide. Instead, deciding where to place the Sawmill should depend on roughly how many Forest resources are in range of it (which is easy to see), as well as how to connect it to the transportation network and find workers nearby.
Hope these choices will make sense in the upcoming closed beta! If you haven’t signed up already for it, you can do so here: https://subscribepage.io/pressingthumbs.
I have an extra dev update note: I have added some wave effects near the coast and some trails behind ships. This is how they look:
They may be a bit faint due to the GIF resolution and compression, but I am hoping they will add to the chill feelings and keep you in the flow during play!
Until the next update! Have a good one in the meantime.
If you want to stay in touch or have questions you can find me here:
Spring is almost here, and it's time to celebrate with some outstanding March sales. Each week, we'll be featuring a valuable bundle filled with essential goodies along with some community-favorite items that will return to the Gem Store at a discounted price. And we'll sprinkle in some brand-new cosmetic items and Black Lion Chest updates as the month goes on as well!
March Sales Schedule
Black Lion Chest Keys will be discounted 20% during two separate intervals in March. Stock up on March 1–5 and March 22–26 to take advantage of these savings!
Week 1—February 27 until March 5
All Outfits—20% Off
All Unique Weapon Skins—20% Off
Featured Bundle: Sensational Storage Package
Week 2—March 5 until March 12
All Backpiece Skins—20% Off
All Gliders—20% Off
Featured Bundle: Sensational Storage Package
Week 3—March 12 until March 19
All Mount Skins—20% Off
All Dye Kits—20% Off
Many Novelty Items—20% Off
Featured Bundle: Build and Equipment Template Bundle
Week 4—March 19 until March 26
All Unique Armor Skins—20% Off
All Chairs—20% Off
Featured Bundle: Travel with Friends Package
Week 5—March 26 until April 2
Many Account Upgrades—20% Off (Such as Bank Tab Expansions, Bag Slot Expansions, and Character Slot Expansions)
Featured Bundle: Travel with Friends Package
Stay tuned to our Tuesday Gem Store blogs in March for the full details on the featured bundles and our new cosmetic items!
Lastly, we're changing the cooldown on the Recharging Teleport to Friend from one hour down to ten minutes! This item will be included in our Travel with Friends Package starting on March 19 and will be discounted along with the other account upgrades starting on March 26.
Before moving on to the patch notes we want to thank you for your support and patience. In May we will leave early access and we are saving all the final content until then. Yes, we are aware that it is easy to advance, buy items and become very powerful at the beginning with the right talents, this is intentional. Test the content and if you find anything please write to us on X/Twitter, Discord, Steam, email... we will be attentive in case there is anything we have missed.
What's new
Some new dungeons have been added for more variety.
The logic of distributing enemies in the rooms has been modified, now the number of enemies in the rooms will be more consistent.
You can now attack by holding down (main attack) on the enemy.
Starting from the 13th floor, 2 new types of enemies will appear.
Added a descriptive message indicating the quality and level of forging unlocked when collecting a scroll.
Some weapons now have a chance to be left-handed weapons so it is possible to equip two one-handed weapons.
Boss legendaries are now favorites by default so you don't accidentally sell them.
Added a button when interacting with Drall to directly access the forge.
Drall's interface has been slightly modified to make the change between forge and shop a little clearer.
Gold has been added to the inventory.
Drall's decoration has been changed to progress with the story.
It is now possible to sort inventory by item type.
Equipment items dropped by enemies now have a border according to their quality.
Improved loot logic to prevent duplicate equipment.
2-handed weapon attack area damage has been reduced.
New item in the rest area: chest. You can store up to 16 items that you don't want to lose, but don't want to take with you.
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug where the amount of health/mana was not displayed correctly on the bars. They appeared full, but numerically they were never full.
Fixed an issue where in dungeons on different floors the enemies on the upper floor would disappear when you went down the stairs.
An error that allowed items sold without having money to be recovered when changing stores has been fixed.
Fixed a visual bug with enemies dying from powerful nova damage.
Fixed a bug that prevented you from continuing past the second boss after defeating it.
Many games these days use AI or purchased pre-made assets from stores. And we are not here to judge anyone. There are many valid reasons for this (economical, time saving, etc).
The question is what about Portal Fantasy? Well in this magical world we have crafted for you we have used no artificial intelligence or purchased assets at any point to craft this experience for you.
We believe in the old-school magic of human creativity. Each pixel is handcrafted with love, all assets are made by our artists and each note is composed for our melodies that'll have you humming for days.
And to top it all we are insane demanding. So we made our own engine so have no limitations in terms of imagination. Just those random pesky bugs we occasionally find. But even those are temporary limitations.
Our team of talented artists, designers, musicians, and writers have been pouring their hearts and souls into every pixel, note, and word because we want you to feel the warmth of the creativity that went into making this game.
We believe that Portal Fantasy should feel like it is crafted by human hands and fueled by human dreams. Or nightmares...depending on what we are producing.
Thank you for reading this development diary for Portal Fantasy. We will keep them until the game is finished, and if you are interested, please add the game to your wishlist on STEAM!