Introducing the first trailer for Tribe Of Pok:
Trailer Production
It’s amazing how long it takes to make a one-minute video. You have to plan out each scene, then go in-game and shoot it. Then you realise you need special debug functionality to capture the scenes you want, so you have to program those in. Luckily a few of the scenes happened naturally in the course of gameplay (and I happened to have a recent save handy so I could replay it over and over). Add in effects and overlays, and you end up with a good chunk of time taken.
It was an enjoyable learning experience, I think I might create a few more tutorial-type videos showing how to play the game. As for trailers, I probably won’t make another for a while unless an awesome idea grips me.
Of course this month wasn’t just spent making videos, there’s also been a few substantial changes to the game.
What’s New?
Animations have been improved using the animation system I implemented last month. Animals push and shove as they fight. Trees sprout into existence and fall over when they die. The good thing about this system is I can stretch, shrink, offset and transform existing images to create the illusion of movement/action without having to create lots of separate sprites. I can use mathematics to bounce, wiggle and shake objects which I’m more comfortable doing rather than blowing the budget on animations.
Some work was done on the new player experience as well. Tutorials pop up now to ensure the player doesn’t miss them, and I’ve also added more tooltips. One fairly big addition is tooltips for extracting, harvesting and butchering. When you hover over a hex with a designation active, the tooltip will tell you what the output will be if you assign a task there. E.g. click on the Extract designation, hover over a tree and it will list wood and twigs as the product. Once you’ve cut down the tree, hover over that same hex again and if there’s fertile ground, it will list grass as the product. The tooltips are context sensitive. Here we have an example of hovering over the same tree when Extracting vs Harvesting. You can see the different outputs depending on the context:
Here’s a full list of updates:
Features
- Added animation for living thing maturing
- Added first pass of ruins on map as a resource
- Animal spawning is now biome-specific
- Added automatic settings for first time playing
- Added scrolling and zooming acceleration
- Added cloud particle effect
- Added tutorial for stockpile window choices
- Added tooltip when in extract and harvest mode for materials produced
- Added tooltip for required materials to start fire
Gameplay
- Implemented different species for foreign tribe members
- Player can choose reward after completing objective
- Changed displaying animal cooldown when fighting to displaying health
- Replaced pierce, slash, blunt with just damage
- Replaced individual protection with just armor
- Reworked sprint and movement speed
- Reformulated attack/defense calculation
- When fighting on same hex, added goal for animal to move off cell if lighter than opponent
- Change default starting families to 3
- Add butcher button to sidemenu and remove from querypanel
- Raw meat now produces two cooked meat
- Flowing water increases plant death chance
Fixes
- Set up blackouts on diplomacy panel for tasks that can’t be done yet
- Tutorial now pops up screen all the time
- Fixed tooltip hidden under mouse cursor
- Added cooldown for animal noises so not so repetitive
- Fix gaps between tiles when zooming sometimes
- Fixed constant sound repeat for news items
- Fix fighting news report appearing and disappearing really quickly
- Fixed camera slightly offset when zooming to locations
- Blackout speed buttons when no meeting point set yet
- Fixed mid-navigation path recalculation off by one
- Smoothed out volume changes from scrolling around map
- Fix combat arrows not following humans smoothly
- Reward events panel now pops in front of normal events panel
- Fixed animal leaders jumping around when they should be idling
- Fix human getting distracted by animal when not actually scared of animal
- Fixed navigation to adjacent square not possible in certain circumstances
- Make save icon stay on screen longer
- Fixed animal not drinking water when on top of it
By the way, the game is now also available via Itch.io!
Twitter – ParsleyPWG
Website – PokingWaterGames.com
