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Re: Blacksmith NPCs and ordering their products
Great addition. I feel like the blacksmith will always want firewood delivered. Perhaps he could have work available or just a frequently offered version of the "Help with chores" quest to deliver firewood. Yep, we've already cherished ideas about helping the blacksmith with collecting the forging related materials. But that's not yet gonna be in in the first blacksmith featuring version to be released. There's a lot to and great potential to spin-off with this addition. March 21, 2023, 10:02:18 AM |
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Sami, Erkka and master Lassi
Hey hey, it's a special coding (and recreational) weekend going on together with Erkka (co-designer) at my place. And it's no surprise that we've been working on a upcoming blacksmith code. This kind of sessions are always very productive, and of the earlier mentioned still remaining NPC blacksmithing to-dos these two biggies are now done: - go through the item lists and consider what items blacksmith will produce, considering their culture and expertise. - set production times, and few other variables, for the items they produce. We've done a lots of checks, tests, adjustments and minor additions too - and that continues. The days have been sunny, so catching a fresh air between the coding sessions is also essential.  Erkka (co-designer) on the left, Sami (creator) on the right - thinking and wandering in the woods. Of the newest spin-off features one to mention is that when you ask from villagers if there is a blacksmith around they will be proud to immediately mention if their blacksmith is a skilled one. Only the most skilled blacksmiths can make the most demanding items, such as a skramasaksis, kaumolais knives, swords or helmets. Upon last night's playtesting session while looking for blacksmith at Koivula a certain villager told us about master Lassi being around. His forging skills were indeed notable:  Stay tuned. The release with NPC blacksmiths is upon us this very month. April 02, 2023, 11:54:00 AM |
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Blacksmith orders viewed on the map
Release of 3.80 stable is just around the corner, and some very sweet features are awaiting us there. There are still some sweaty days ahead, but hopefully it's all wrapped up the next week. Let this screenshot reveal one of the final touches. 
May 18, 2023, 05:25:13 PM |
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Craftable fishing nets and more
The current version 3.80 is now few weeks fresh and working smoothly. And we've been working on a new update for this summer. So how about just a little update about the little something upcoming? Very well. And let's do it with a sneak preview screenshots. So, what is to be highlighted now and to be featured in the next release is ... Fishing nets craftable by the player characte Player characters will be able to make fishing nets. Thinking of the mere amount of yarn alone it's not all too simple craft to collect the material for. You'll also need rocks for the weights, and birch-bark to wrap the weights with and to make floats. And then there is also a special tool required ...  Netting needle. That's the tool you'll need. It's a wooden tool for weaving the net with proper knots. As a curiosity for history enthusiasts, one of the oldest known fishing nets in the world, the Antrea Net dated to 8540 BCE, was laced with knots that indicate use of netting needle. The same kind of fishing net knots have been used by Baltic Finns in much, much later dates. UnReal World takes place around 800-1200 CE.  Netting needle.  Net weight - a decent size rock wrapped in birch-bark. Introducing pausable crafting In the next screenshot our character has started weaving the net. And after 6 hours of work the progress bar hasn't even reached the tenth of the remaining time...  Now what's that about? Well, that means in the next version we'll be also introducing pausable crafting for making a net - and for few other tasks. This will be the start of featuring a possibility to have a break in long crafting tasks and continue at will later on. After the mechanics have been tested properly it will be expanded to cover wider range of crafting. Which will make quite a difference, you'll see. So making a net won't be a task of few hours, or even few days, but can easily last for a week or more. After four or five days of weaving the net our character takes a look at the half-finished work in progress...  Luckily for us all, the upcoming version is already more than half-finished by now. July 2023 seems like good month for yet another release. These are future features - not yet functional in current version 3.80.[/i}] June 13, 2023, 07:44:36 PM |
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Version 3.81 released for Windows
In the midst of summer schedule challenges we're hereby releasing version 3.81 first for Windows and follow with Linux and OS X builds in early august. Version 3.81 for Windows is available on Steam, Itch.Io and for lifetimers. This version is mostly about craftable and repairable fishing nets, preliminary introduction of pausable crafting and some bugfixes. Find full changelog at the end of this post, and now let's highlight the most exciting addition... Craftable and repairable fishing nets Now it's possible to both craft a net from the scratch, and to repair worn-out nets. These are both pausable tasks allowing you to finish them in parts as you please. This will be the start of featuring a possibility to have breaks in long crafting tasks and continue at will later on. After the mechanics have been developed further this will be expanded to cover wider range of crafting.  Weaving a net is laborious task and the mere amount of yarn alone may be demanding to obtain. The other material requirements include thicker cordage for the supporting lines, rocks for weights and birch or pine bark for floats. Traditionally the rock weights were sometimes wrapped inside birch-bark pockets for more durable attachment. This is optionally doable in the game as well.  Making a net is process of several days, and that is why nets were usually woven indoors during the wintertime. For the history and realism sake a good use of written sources along with actually interviewing old net makers were carried out to come up with the many values and mechanics. And still there's a room to add some advanced fishing net care and maintenance features in the future. It might be interesting for some if we opened up our research and field studies later on, but here's just one curiosity: There's a tool called netting needle which has been essential in netmaking. It's a tool the player characters can craft in the game as well. In our interviews with a certain old net maker one question was: "We're the nets ever made by hand alone, without a netting needle, and is it even viable?" Ville, a real person in real world - an old fisherman - just kept staring for a really, really long time and said "Everyone had their own netting needle." Other interviewees also confirmed that netting needles were always needed, even when repairing the nets, and during the fishing season people would carry them around just in case. Well, the game mechanics allow netmaking without a netting needle too, but you will only find it impractically slow. Netting needle. Changelog Version 3.81 for Windows ** Saved characters from version 3.70-> are compatible with this version. ** - added: craftable fishing net It is now possible to make a fishing net by the player character. The option can be found at "Fishing" category in the [M]ake menu. Weaving a net is laborious task and the mere amount of yarn alone may be demanding to obtain. The other material requirements include thicker cordage for the supporting lines, rocks for weights and birch or pine bark for floats. Traditionally the rock weights were sometimes wrapped inside birch-bark pockets for more durable attachment. This is optionally doable in the game as well. Making a net is process of several days, and that is why nets were usually woven indoors during the wintertime. In the game making a net is newly featured pausable task allowing you to finish it in parts as you please. - added: NETMAKING skill Netmaking is a skill for weaving and constructing fishing nets. Success in netmaking determines the quality of the nets crafted. For migrated characters this skill is created upon the first load in this version. - added: pausable crafting In this version we are introducing pausable crafting for a few selected items. This will be the start of featuring a possibility to have breaks in long crafting tasks and continue at will later on. After the mechanics have been developed further this will be expanded to cover wider range of crafting. Crafts that can be currently paused are: * Net * Chop felled tree into blocks * Split firewood from a block * Split a trunk into boards With the pausable timbercraft options you can now also use unhandy and inferior tools eg. stone-axe in board making as there's no upper limit of how much time can be used to get the work done. Pausable crafting works similarly to pausable building. You can cancel the process at will, and then continue at will. The crafting will be continued when you try to make the said item again standing beside the partially finished item. For example, if you try to [M]ake a fishing net beside a partially crafted net the crafting continues. Partially crafted items will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them. - added: different tile graphics for a set net Tile graphics for a set fishing net is now different resembling its float line on top of the water. - updated: "Net" game encylopedia (F1) entry - changed: the weight and price of the net item Both have been increased. The weight because of the rock weights taken into account, and the price because of the true workload. - added: netting needle, a new item Netting needle is a wooden tool used to weave fishing nets. It can be crafted by the player character from [M]ake menu "Fishing" category. Netting needle allows weaving the net conveniently with proper knots and tight mesh of uniform size. - added: repair worn-out nets The option to "Repair worn-out net" can be found at "Fishing" category in the [M]ake menu. Repairing a net is also pausable task and can be cancelled and continued at will. To continue paused net repair works the same as continuing paused net crafting; if you use the repair option again beside the partially repaired net the crafting will continue. - added: harvesting pine bark Pine bark can be harvested from big pine trees all-year round. Pine bark chunks are used used in making of net floats. - added: "Bark" game encylopedia (F1) entry - added: ball of birch-bark strip as village resource Villagers now gather and stock balls of birch-bark strip. These can be then traded for by the player characters if need be. Birch-bark availability in villages is based on the culture, and it naturally gets restocked only when the birch-bark harvesting season is on. - updated: "Birch-bark" game encylopedia (F1) entry - added: timbercraft product quantities affected by the used tool, ie. an axe When making boards, blocks of wood or firewood you'll get fewer products when using an unhandy axe for the said tasks. The effect is most notable when the axe is far from preferred one, eg. making boards with a stone-axe. - adjusted: blacksmiths titled as masters always produce masterwork goods There was a small skill range where blacksmiths titled as masters produced fine, but not masterwork goods. This has been adjusted so that now masters always produce masterwork goods. - fixed: using STEALTH from skills menu prompted nothing Now it says the skill is automatically used when necessary. That is, when your character gets [h]iding. - fixed: firemaking failing at fertilized locations Fire data couldn't be properly set to locations with fertilization data. - fixed: some diy/biy descriptions corrupting the material requirement text output Adding descriptive texts eg. '+(needed for this and that)' to some diy/biy entries caused text output corruption in the displayed list of required materials. This was noticed with some cordage at least. - fixed: math failures when using withes (on the ground) in constructions There was a rare occasion where using withes on the ground might cause math failures to the number of materials used or required. This was noticed with building a fence gate, but might have occurred elsewhere too. - fixed: animals leaving droppings far too often after 255 game days Yep, it was char<>int kind of mistake in the dropping interval calculations. - fixed: some encumbrance penalty calculations Excess penalty didn't always capped at 100%, and the weight of worn clothes you could carry without penalty wasn't always calculated correctly. - fixed: making stone arrowheads not allowing using stones on the ground for grinding - fixed: wading mode text alignment not centered - fixed: repeat the last action display for arrow and bowstring was blank Cheers! July 31, 2023, 01:19:14 PM |
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Splashes and ripples - visual fish activity indicators
The fish spawning cycles are in action and pikes, breams, salmons and lavarets now gather at their species specific spawning locations at their specific times of the year. As the fish spawn in shallow waters they do splash in noticeable way, so we just had to also add splashing sounds to be heard and round water ripples to be seen. These are completely new indicators of fish activity and quite essential in order to find the fish spawning locations. The water ripples have other uses too as they can be added to indicate diving of aquatic birds or seals, or added as simple eye candy when you throw something into the water. But first things first... we're now testing and making last adjustments to the new fishing stuff, then fix a few fistfuls of most critical bugs, and then wrap up the new version for a release. Here's a few screenshots of the newly added splashes and ripples:  Isto hears a splash from the west. It's pike and bream spawning season, and the shallow vegetation rich shore looks just the right kind for that. Could it be the spawning fish? All the evidence, and even the Kuikka, seems to be pointing that way.  More splashing and now Isto notices it's the fish. Now if you look two tiles north from the character you'll see round water ripples. In the game these come with a modest little animation. Easier to notice, prettier to witness. Now Isto will know at where he should try spearfishing - or maybe using a lippo. These are future features - not yet functional in current version 3.81. September 19, 2023, 07:20:14 PM |
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Version 3.82 released
We're happy to announce a new version release. Version 3.82 is now released on Steam, Itch.Io and for lifetimers. This version brings you a whole new fishing method, bunch of fish life improvements and a basket of crucial bugfixes. Find the changelog below. Version 3.82 changelog ** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. ** - added: retrievable broken off arrowheads Occasionally arrows do break upon hitting a target, and now the arrowheads can be also occasionally, but not always, retrieved and re-used. Only the arrows of decent or higher quality will loose the arrowheads in retrievable condition and the arrowhead itself almost always suffers from the quality degrade. If the arrow breaks from hitting a non-living target you will find the arrowhead on the ground together with the broken arrow item. If the arrow breaks upon hitting a living target the broken arrow part will drop on the ground and the arrowhead gets stuck into target's body. These stuck arrowheads are not visible to the player character when looking at NPCs/creatures, but can be found and retrieved only from the target's dead carcass. - added: lippo fishing, a new fishing method[/b] Lippo is a kind of a dip net with a long pole used for catching fish from rivers and shallow waters. Lippo fishing is foremostly practised only at certain times of the year; when the fish to be caught are migrating upstream to their spawning locations, and during the active spawning period. Fishing with a lippo in the rivers and rapids is done by standing on rocks in the river. The location is often suitable when there are several rocks around as these are the usual places where both resting and spawning river fish are around and can be caught. Additionally, a lippo can also be used from the shore if the spawning fish are noticed by the shoreline. The lippo is lowered into the water, down to the bottom, and carefully dragged around in order to catch resting or spawning fish into its hoop. Start using your lippo either by [a]pplying the lippo from the inventory or using the FISHING skill. - added: LIPPO encyclopedia (F1) entry - added: craftable lippo You can craft a lippo from [M]ake menu under [F]ishing category. A lippo is constructed in such a way that it has a wooden hoop into which multiple small birch saplings are tied to. These saplings are tied together at their open ends, so that they form a net like construction around the hoop. The hoop with this net is then fixed to a long wooden pole. The applicable character skill for crafting a lippo is NETMAKING. - added: spawning periods for the relevant fish species The following fish now have their unique spawning periods; pike, bream, salmon and lavaret. During the spawning period the fish gather up at their species specific spawning locations. This can be then taken advantage of by spearfishing or using newly featured lippo fishing. - added: splashing and water ripples from the fish activity As the fish spawn in shallow waters they do splash in noticeable way, and there are now splashing sounds to be heard and round water ripples to be seen indicating the fish activity. These are essential cues in order to find the actual fish spawning locations. There's splashing audio to be heard but you are also notified with a game message. For example "You hear a splash from the east." or "You notice a lavaret splashing in the water." And then there are modestly animated water ripples, a new visual effect that can be noticed in the water where the fish activity has taken place. - added: encyclopedia (F1) entries for PIKE, BREAM, SALMON and LAVARET You'll find information for example about their spawning periods and habitats, and the related fishing means. - improved: spearfishing It still remains possible to catch lone roaming fish with luck and patience, but now the spearfishing can be considered most effective for catching the spawning fish. Upon spearfishing you will be now notified about the ongoing fish spawning periods. The messages will tell if the chosen location might be good considering the spawning fish, or if the spawning might be going on elsewhere. These are hints to consider in order to find a good spot, but you are naturally free to try out your spearfishing luck also regardless of the spawning periods and locations. There are also some changes in the spearfishing messages thorough the process. - changed: rain visual effect slightly softened with randomized alpha blending - added: ROUNDSHIELD encyclopedia (F1) entry - updated: FISHING ROD encyclopedia (F1) entry with a bit of baiting information - fixed: not being able to use withes as tying equipment when crafting skis - fixed: encyclopedia tooltips in the inventory not displayed for items with additional item part descriptions Tooltips were missing for items such as "Hunting bow with no string" or "Fishing rod with iron hook". Now the base items (ie. "Hunting bow" and "Fishing rod") are properly parsed in these cases too and the tooltips displayed accordingly. - fixed: Old Man's Punt quest dialogue confusions The quest progression dialogue had gotten tangled with blacksmith related dialogue. - fixed: NPC archers could shoot arrows from beyond player character's visible range - fixed: NPC archers could use and shoot back the arrows that had originally hit them - fixed: blacksmith product price estimation oddities Quest rewards were discounted from the final blacksmith product prices, but the blacksmiths didn't bring this up in their dialogue which caused confusion and wrong estimations. This was most notable when quest reward would compensate for the whole price and resulted in blacksmith trade preference being blanked (ie. "..give me your .") Now blacksmiths will speak about how much the possible reward compensates, and give items truly for free with applicable rewards. Blacksmiths might also have given wrong price estimation for batch of product because of not calculating the number of finished items properly. - fixed: blacksmiths failing to produce ordered items Blacksmiths often failed to produce ordered items because of carrying too much load. This prevented the ordered items to be added in their inventory. Blacksmiths kept building up the excess load because the items they got as a payment weren't never removed and restocked from their inventory. Now blacksmiths will restock their inventory before attempting to carry the finished ordered item. - fixed: usage of TEXTILECRAFT from the skills window or via hotkey not working for migrated characters - fixed: TEXTILECRAFT skill not improving for migrated characters - fixed: Chat command causing fade to black after being forcefully woken up by an NPC Cheers! October 09, 2023, 07:45:11 PM |
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Participating to Free City of Games game art event in Kouvola, Finland
Free City of Games, the event showcasing games and game culture is being held in Kouvola, Finland for the second time in November 2.-19.11.2023. This year I'm happy and honoured to participate the exhibition with an interactive playable installation created together with a long-time fellow coder and friend mr. Pasanen. Our work is called "Avaruuspuhelin" (Space Phone in English), and it's basically a seriously tweaked old rotary phone which you can use to solve a little extra terrestial mystery in sort of escape room fashion. So if you happen to reside, or feel like travelling to Kouvola, Finland, feel free to visit the event. It's all free, and features a diverse selection of games and game art to play and experience.  No matter what sort of game you've created, the playtesting is important. You can find more photos and background info here at the Buy Me a Coffee page: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/samimaaranen/free-city-games-participating-game-art-event November 05, 2023, 01:25:38 PM |
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[3.82] Porridge can only be cooked in absurdly small portions
Currently it seems porridge can only be cooked in completely tiny portions (something like 1/10 of the pot volume), and each of those portions requires a pot, a few hours, and tons of button presses that can't be replicated with "r" button for more convenient "mass"-production. This amount in my experience is enough for like 30-40% of daily nutrition, compared to 100+% given by a simple meat soup, which takes shorter to cook, and, more significantly, requires only one button-mashing session ; ) So why can porridge be produced only in such a pitiful amount in one go? Is this intended? Currently it seems it's way easier and way less stressful for me as a player to just take my flour and create tons and tons of flatbreads, which require just one button click and seem to provide nutrition comparable to porridge (and of course don't require containers to carry around or trade). Which is overall a bit unrealistic I think, porridge was supposed to be the common staple food, so I reckon it shouldn't be that inconvenient in the game to cook it in reasonable amounts, if we already have a pot and all the ingredients. November 25, 2023, 08:19:51 PM |
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In the real world at present-day Savo
The year is nearing its end - so let us send you our winter season's greetings with this post. Firstly, we wish you all the best with the festivities and holiday season you might have at hand, and happy new year! Then, as a season's speciality let us entertain you with little something recreational from the real world at present-day Savo. The winter has come, and for the devs like us it means the balance between coding and cross-country skiing must carefully maintained. So, a week ago Erkka came over for a visit - and we went exploring the real world on skis.   Over the years, we've found ourselves doing many kind of media works more or less related to the game world or inspired by the iron-age culture. And now, quite spontaneously, we ended up doing small stop-motion animation - and then though of publishing it as 2023 season's greetings at Enormous Elk YouTube channel. There's more, and surely more sophisticated content to explore, if the channel wasn't familiar to you already. We call it Tanssivat tontut in finnish, which would translate as Dancing goblins or Dancing household spirits in english. https://youtu.be/du2pkQUN9Fg?si=aOPZkYand2qcKmFW And lastly, for myself the last weeks have been more busy with horseback riding and archery than coding. In early December I did three horseback archery demonstrations at different stables which required quite a bit of both time and energy. But hey, sometimes one has to ride a horse to endure extended still sitting periods in front of the computer. And maybe it's good for one to try out the bow for real if he intends to simulate archery in the game. So, this also falls into category of in the real world at present-day Savo. Let the bow skill speculations start  https://youtu.be/oPaZKJluLDQ?si=vAzUS2KX986sx7ux Let's see you in 2024, with all sort of new achievements, features and adventures to follow in the real and unreal world. Cheers! December 17, 2023, 06:46:33 PM |
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