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Re: Does killing dogs have consequences?
Think of it this way: You’re farming some turnips, grains, hemp. For years you and your family does this. Then one year, there’s a newcomer who pitches his tent where your cows graze. Half your turnips go missing. You’ve not seen any other strangers. Where do you think your produce went? Personally I think the villagers are too kind. I’d be looking for an empty sack and some rope. And couple stones. February 22, 2021, 11:18:36 PM |
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'Asentokuusi' - simple shelter under a leaning spruce tree
A few essential wilderness accommodation options for rough wanderers are coming up. 'Asentokuusi' (can be freely translated as "post spruce") was the simplest form of shelter for resting and spending a night protected from the elements - and in the next patch we'll be featuring a possibility to set up a 'post spruce'. Post spruce is made simply by felling a young spruce to lean against another spruce tree. Some of the lowest twigs are removed to create space, and these are then laid on the ground for some insulation and cushion. Simple as that. This was the usual method of spending a night in the wilderness condition when more permanent camp wasn't necessary. Setting up a post spruce will found in "Building options", and it does felling the tree and covering the ground with twigs all together. Tools needed for the process are the same as for felling young trees in general. With this addition we'll also feature general usage of spruce twigs as ground cover for insulation. If there are no furs to cover yourself into sleeping on spruce twigs, instead of bare ground, now keeps you a bit more warm during cold nights. These are future additions, not yet functional in current version 3.63. March 12, 2021, 06:39:15 PM |
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Textilecraft continued
Fibre processing is on the table. We'll be featuring a new skill, TEXTILECRAFT, which determines the success and time required for several work phases of processing fibres into yarn. For migrated characters textilecraft will be initiated to the cultural defaults upon first load. All the textilecraft options - retting, drying, spinning etc. - will be found in the general [M]ake menu, and can be also accessed simply by using the skill. Spinning fibres into yarn is now pretty much competely done, the productions times and yarn yield carefully considered. Textilecraft mastery, and using a spindle or not, naturally affects to outcome and spinning times. The actual mechanics of getting fibres spun works so that when "spin yarn"-textilecraft option is chosen you'll be asked to choose from the inventory which fibres to spin. After that you'll be informed how much yarn you can expect to get from that, and can select how much you wish to produce now. And then the spinning starts, with a spindle or by hand. During the playtest I've spun (magically generated) nettle fibres, but we'll be also making hemp as fibre source. The fibre processing keeps track of the master plant so the plant identity is easily turned into resulting yarn. Nettle yarn, hemp yarn, and so on. Flax is naturally something to think of. We'll see if it fits into this version. Now as the yarn generation from the fibres is working we'll be also adding yarns as village items, so instead of spinning your own you can also trade your yarn from some cultures. The big question still being pondered is how expensive yarn should be? It's hard work to spin yarn with a spindle, takes about minute to produce three feet (or a meter). Next up, coding and testing the preceeding steps; retting and drying and extracting fibres. A few screenshots follow.  Skills screen with TEXTILECRAFT in place.  After choosing the bundle of fibre to spin there's dialog asking how much of yarn Kuitu Kaumolainen wishes to produce on this go. March 24, 2021, 07:08:44 PM |
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The Moon and The Crust
Erkka was visiting me last weekend and some really exciting weather engine achievements and accompanying real life adventures were made. Now there are two new essential weather features on the table - both still somewhat under construction, but most likely to be seen in the next version. And the features are... * The moon. Our weather engine now models the moon in detail, with its' changing phases and moonlight affecting to the nighttime visibility and brightness. Lots of tuning is still pending, but we can already see that the full-moon nights in the game will be a different experience. Especially during the darkest seasons moonlight can be a of great help and extended the available hours for working, hunting or travelling. Just have a look at the screenshot compilation below.  Left: A casual midnight by the lake in dirt month as it appears currently in the game. Right: The same scenery with the new moon code in action. It's full moon and our nighttime visibility is a much different. * Snow crust Snow crust is a springtime phenomena where surface of the snowpack becomes so hard that it can completely support a walking or skiing person. The crust results from partial melting of the snow surface by warm spring day sunlight followed by re-freezing when the temperature drops again, usually after the sunset. The crust normally only lasts for part of the day, but being able to travel on snow without sinking in there at all is a great asset for a hunter. Elks were traditionally hunted on skis during crust as it can't support the heavy animals and hunter gliding on crust with skis now became much faster than their prey. Lots of work is still needed before snow crust support is all coded, but that's the intention. Now it also requires proper snow penalty to be added for NPCs and animals, and reworking the skiing code to some extent too. (And if you were thinking of skiing NPCs so were we.) The last weekend it was both full moon and snow crust possibility, so we also went experiencing these things in real life. Naturally these both are familiar experiences already, and as countryside kids we've learned possibilities of snow crust for work and leisure all the way from our childhood. But if you'd like to see the magic of skiing in moonlight without any artificial light, or get an idea about difference between skiing in slushy spring snow compared to the crust, we've got a short videoclip for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOcb_cm5UkE March 29, 2021, 05:36:42 PM |
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Re: Does killing dogs have consequences?
They don't seem to care that their dogs are dead because they never come looking for them. I have only had one experience with this but it was fairly enlightening so I'm gonna share it. I saw a human shaped figure a few tiles away from my homestead on the wilderness map, so I figured I'd go investigate and see if if was someone who needed their ass kicked (a robber). It was just Olli, a fellow Kaumo hunter, and his dog. I left Olli and his dog to their own devices and returned to my homestead. That night, I awoke to "strange noises", and discovered that a dog had found its way into my medium deadfall trap that I keep baited right outside my cabin and got itself a little banged up. Assuming it belonged to Olli, I released it and went back to bed. The same exact thing happened the next night, and again I released the dog and went back to bed. After getting woken up for the third night in a row, I realized the dog didn't really want to live after all, as it had gotten itself injured three times in a row in the same trap over the same piece of spoiled meat. I decided that my fine battleaxe would be a more humane end to his suffering than his chosen method of repeated blunt injury, and I also needed a set of dog fur mittens as they help when fighting bears, so it was a win/win really. A few days later I left on a trip to another region to look for some seeds to help expand my farm. When I returned two weeks later, a swarm of foreign traders had descended on my homestead. They had nothing I was interested in purchasing, yet they insisted on hanging out for a few days and taking a good look around my place, taking special interest in my sauna which I was able to determine by hearing the door open and close about a hundred times over those few days. During one of these evenings I was attempting to get some blacksmithing done amid the clamor of nonstop sauna door action when outside my window appeared a lone Kaumo hunter. It was Olli, and Olli was pissed. Being severely fatigued due to my smithing I was in no shape to fight, so I pulled out my axe and shield and backed into a corner, waiting for Olli to walk around to the front of the house and come in through the front door. Instead, I heard sounds of fighting to the West. Assuming Olli was out for blood and picked a fight with the first humans he laid eyes on, I thanked the gods for the chance to rest my fatigue away. By the time I had finished resting, the sounds of fighting had quieted down. It was pitch black outside, so rather than wandering around in the dark and feeling somewhat safe due to the sudden lack of activity, I went to bed, determined to scout around the next day and see if I could find Olli's body. I was awoken by an uninjured Olli planting his axe in my hip. Unable to stand, I managed to get a good enough swing at him from my bed to knock him on the ground, and then to finish him off with a solid hit to the neck. Thoroughly confused by the situation, I crawled my crippled ass all around my cabin to the west where I had heard sounds of fighting, but never found a trace of the foreign traders. Months later in the same save, I still have no idea what went down that night, but it damn sure made a hilarious memory. April 08, 2021, 11:03:56 PM |
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Fibre processing continues with retting and some spin-off features
By now spinning code is all done and tested and polished, and we're happily able to spin both nettle and hemp yarn. With some new flora_*.txt tags added it's actually possible to add fibre yield for any flora_*.txt plant, although the textilecraft processes are modelled for nettle and hemp. But yes indeed for example flax as a new fibre source can be added relatively easily. We've also added straw, a mere stalk of certain plants, as a new item type. Straws will be a byproduct of threshing plants such as nettles and hemp, but with a flora_ tag of their other plants can be also given straw yield. Straws don't (yet) have specific use of their own but do serve as material for fibre processing. Straw items were added for the sake of being able to thresh valuable plants for seeds and leaves first, and still have the straw remaining for fibre. And now there's "retting" added for textilecraft options. It's a process for separating the fibres from the stalks of harvested plants, and the first and foremost option of them all. Retting is done by soaking the plants in the water for several days. The soaking needs to be done by open water and the sufficient soaking time depends on the water temperature, varying from 5 to even 25 days. The warmer the water, the faster the retting process is. The retting doesn't occur at all in very cold water so it can't be done for example in the winter. However, nettles are a speciality and you can peel fibres from them by hand without retting, but it's relatively slow and mostly used only if small amount of yarn needs to be spun. Now the remaining steps to do on our way to completely finished textilecraft system for fibre processing would be drying the retted plants, and extracting the fibre. So let's continue ... These are future additions - not yet functional in current version 3.63. April 19, 2021, 04:48:22 PM |
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...and snow penalties for all
Back at snow code. A good while ago we added the snow crust to weatherengine. Its' working game mechanics in character's life are still pending to be added, and so are the skiing NPCs. Both are coming up, but before that these improvements were first in line. - improved: moving in the snow mobility and fatigue penalties Previously there was one overall reduction to character's mobility when moving in the snow without skis, but now the actual snow depth affects to how much the mobility is actually reduced. The same goes for fatigue as it now accumulates slower or faster depending on the snow depth. Shortly, the deeper the snow the harder and slower it is to trudge through it without skis. - added: snow penalties for animals and NPCs NPCs and animals now suffer from the snow penalties similarly to player character. All the snow penalty mechanics now work the same for player character, other human beings and animals. The actual snow depth that starts to hinder the animals is naturally relative to their size. A human knee deep snow is a little extra strain for an adult elk, but for example a wild boar or dog would suffer from it more significantly. The new snow depth mechanics bring in many new factors to animal movement and hunting scenarios. For example, it now becomes actually possible to practice traditional hunting tactics to more easily chase elks on skis during the deep snow period. It should be noted that there also several animals that are adapted to moving in the snow without much difficulties at all. There are for example hare, lynx, glutton, weasel, ermine, squirrel and so on. For animals like these the snow penalties appear far lesser, and they have their species specific snow movement adjustments in action. These are future additions - not yet functional in current version 3.63. May 21, 2021, 02:19:58 PM |
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Open World Sale on Steam & Dev's life picture feed from the real world
A special sale focusing on Open World games has started on Steam and lasts until 31th of May. We wholeheartedly cherish this special event and celebration of infinite exploration. You know, it's very much our genre, since early 90s, and acknowledged with (debatable) merits such as First open-world survival game (GWR Gamer's Edition 2019). Anyway, it's a special opportunity to grab the game for discounted price from the Steam. Just venture at UnReal World store page. Since this is very dear topic, genre and approach to game development for us, we wanted to celebrate the occasion with special content. Those who have followed the development do know that for Enormous Elk game development isn't actually clean indoors job. We tend to practise what we code, pursue the traditional lifestyle to varying extent, and draw a lot of inspiration from the real world experiments and adventures. As a special way to celebrate the ongoing Open World Sale we've compiled you this picture feed of the two man dev. team doing their infinite exploration outside the development chambers. This is an assorted collection of dev's life along the way in the real world. Enjoy!  Erkka (co-designer) on the left with frame drum, Sami (creator) on the right with kantele, at gorgeous Orinoro gorge in eastern Finland.  Sami doing elks calls in the woods.  Erkka walking horses in the woods.  Traditional log building with traditional equipment. Erkka on the left, Sami on the right.  Erkka's sauna warming up on a winter day.  Broad beans are flowering while Sami is cooking something.  Sami takes a look at the open arctic world.  Rowing in the summer evening.  Roasting the catch in the rain.  Sami after threshing rye in the barn in all traditional, and smoky fashion.  Erkka after some muddy work.  Find a dev among the sheep.  Sami is getting a feel of the wilderness.  Erkka chopping firewood.  Sami doing mounted archery.  Breakfast for Erkka.  Summery coffee break for the two-man dev. team.  Skiing with a shovel preparing to settle here for a night.  Sami's bicycle trip to gather a bunch of wild greens was a success.  And so was Erkka's fishing trip.  Happy islander.  It's winter. It's open world.  On Hornankallio cliff Sami takes a look at the familiar landscape - not too far away from his development chambers.  The Road goes ever on and on ... And if the road goes smoothly the next update, UnReal World version 3.70, will be released in June, 2021.  Cheers! May 27, 2021, 08:27:58 PM |
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We're getting closer and closer to new release
We've pretty much finished the actual coding of upcoming release, version 3.70. Or it's more like we have to seize adding new features now if it's going to be released this month. Few of the initially planned features actually needed to be postponed for later, for example skiing NPCs. However, as there's now snow penalty functioning for NPCs and animals it will be kind of like payback time version. See, NPCs have been trudging through the snow ever so easily for many versions, but our skiing characters really have an advantage - for at least sometime. It's likely that 3.70 will be first released as beta version, and it will still grow with lesser features as we continue to work towards the final stable release. If nothing too complicated comes up with our test runs we'll start wrapping the release up in a week or two. June 16, 2021, 04:11:46 PM |
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Version 3.70 beta now available on Steam, and for Lifetimers
Version 3.70 beta is available on Steam as beta-branch you can opt-into at will. Lifetime members can find the beta version at the designated forum section. On Steam there's now also Summer Sale going on. Beta release on Itch will follow next week. Things are fairly stable already, but as it's beta release the bug potential is higher than usual. Also, some features are still pending to be polished to their final stage in patches to follow. The key features of version 3.70 version deal with the moon and the moonlight, fibre processing with new textilecraft skill, snow penalty for all the creatures and snow crust, new character portraits, tying equipment adjustments, craftable fishing rods and usage of baits, option for metric units, and so on. The list of additions and fixes is long. You can take a look at it here. Phew! It's been quite a bit of content to add. Let's keep our fingers crossed for the possible beta bugs being minor and scarce. But whatever their size and annoyance level may be, we've got our bows prepared for shooting them down. June 27, 2021, 06:35:55 PM |
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