The most exciting change in this update is the introduction of huts! You can now build huts out of wood or bone, depending on what is more readily available. Huts take many resources and a long time to build, so they are not essential to your tribe’s survival. If you want to play as if your tribe is nomadic, you can do so. However, huts have a large storage area and your Pokians will sleep in a hut if there is room.
Last update I introduced the first pass of an objectives system. In this update I’ve improved upon that. Requests can come from either your Pokians or foreign tribes (once they are discovered). If you complete the request, you gain a minor reward. This can be for example, everyone crafting faster for the next 48 hours. My favourite request at the moment is sacrificing an animal carcass at an altar.
I’m always trying to think of new, fun objectives to implement. Also, I’ve changed the way fires light up the surrounding area so it’s softer and looks better. Wild fires also spread up to two hexes away, which means more FUN when things get out of control!
Finally I’d like to mention animations! When plants spawn or die there is now a short animation that plays.
A full list of changes for Alpha 9 is below:
New Features:
- Spawnable resources and plants is read from xml for each biome
- Added huts and altar buildings
- Reintroduced twigs object in wood category
- Stockpile settings applicable to buildings
- Tribe requests from Pokians are now in a panel under Tasks
- Notification buttons darken when they have been viewed
- Add tutorial for tribe requests panel
- Added trading objective with foreign tribes
- Added News section to the UI with various news items
- Added option to limit framerate to 30 FPS for slow computers
- Added news item when Pokian is fighting
- Added functionality for rotating objects
- Added animations for plants dying and sprouting
Gameplay
- Humans will seek hut to sleep in if available
- Add limit to how much huts can store
- Allow plonking buildings without all required materials
- Fuelling fires uses twigs now instead of logs
- Include buildings in influence area in prosperity calculation
- Added timer to objectives so they can expire
- Improved resource deposit generator
- Created herb bush for gathering edible herbs
- Increased range of wild fire spread to 2 hexes
- Halved flammability of plants
- Burn carcass mission needs to be done at an altar
- Reduced volume of carcasses by 2.0
- Modified effective speed formula so heavy carcasses easier to carry
- Added “Great Hunt” objective
- Removed alert text from UI
- Added object status ‘dead’
- More dynamic calculation for plant deaths
- Massively reduced tree growth in winter
- Increased deterioration due to old age in all living things to 75%
Fixes
- Fixed human unable to get off hut once built
- Changed map menu button for building to yellow
- Added image icons for query panel action buttons
- Humans can drop objects from adjacent cells now
- Fixed humans exiting huts from incorrect cell
- Disable deleting ability for primary objectives
- Refactored object statistics in xml for better organisation
- Added extra check to prevent duplicate possible requests
- Fixed large building selection in building menu
- Water transitions smoother
- Fix loading game drawing clothing for off map humans
- Fixed cancelling task while Pokian off map makes them disappear forever
- Fixed human returning from trade mission dropping objects on edge of map
- Fixed loaded game not remembering task’s required materials
- Fixed scout going off map when not even on map edge
- Fixed animations looking the same when game loaded
- Fixed drawing clothing on animals twice
- Fixed secondary light sources not displaying unless first light source displayed
- Fixed cancelling stored object task not stopping Pokian from storing object
- Fixed bed not recognised as building
- Fixed changing meeting point causes bits of old meeting point to be left over
- Fixed can’t bury humanoid carcass
- Fixed rain noise volume was scaling based on humidity
- Fixed disease symptoms sound effects playing when zoomed out
- Reduced animal decision making frequency by 66% to improve performance
- Fixed snowing and raining stopping every hour in winter
- Fixed loading game food pit with unassigned stockpile reassigning stockpile
If you would like to support development you can purchase and play the Alpha or sign up to the newsletter
Twitter – ParsleyPWG
Website – PokingWaterGames.com