Another month, another report. 

In january, I worked on two very complex systems. For me, these were the hardest challenges I faced, mainly the war system and the farming rework.

While the war system still needs more work and needs to pe delayed, so I can work on more important stuff, the farming rework is finished and judging by the lack of bug reports, a success.

Farming is faster, less laggy and also deeper, with plenty of room for expansion. I also added improved item description and reworked the inventory.

Another update also added the ability for players to add their own music, together with being able to skip cutscenes. I also added new weapons for kobolds, in preparation for the war update and I added one new haircut.

Pretty good month. Not much new content, but the old and bad was improved quite a lot. This month will be better. Speaking of which...

Next update

This months update will focus on the new character creation. The basics are done, now I have to make the screen for trait selection and actualy make traits work.

The new system will be pretty simple. Very similiar to project zomboid. You get certain number of perk points at the start of the game and you will be able to select multiple traits for your character. Positive ones cost points, negative ones give you points. Some traits cost more points than others.

I made a very simple table with around 90 rough traits I came up with. Bear in mind these are in no way final. Values, names and descriptions will change. Some traits won't be added while other not present might appear. I'd like to add atleast 40 of them for a start.

Some traits will be really expensive, so you won't be able to get them on your first playthrough. Thats where new bonus for finishing the game comes in. Every time you finish a game, your initial perk points for new characters get increased. This brings me to another change.

Same-save unlocks exploit

There is an exploit in the unlocks system. I knew about it since the very start and left it there on purpose. Basicaly, you can save you game before the end, get one ending and unlock something. Load the game again, raise some stats / do something else and finish the game again. You will unlock new things. By doing this, you can pretty much unlock everything in the game with one save.

I left it in the game for a simple reason. It is an exploit that requires some knowledge and planning. It will save you a lot of time, but it won't break the game in any serious way. Good reward for players that like breaking games while those who don't know about it are not missing out.

Now. I added a seed system into the game. Basicaly every new playthrough gets a unique seed. When you finish a game, it checks the seed and if it already finished the game. This is used for the trait point incrases. Without this, you could simply save the game right next to the ending npc, talk to it, load the game, repeat and you could get pretty much infinite trait points in a matter of minutes. This is way too broken. Now you will have to finish the game multiple times from the start to get more trait points.

This means that I could pretty much remove the unlock exploit, but I won't. I was thinking about it and instead of removing it outright, I made it a little harder.

In next version, the game automaticaly teleports you to the ending section once you survive for one year, instead of allowing you to end the game when you want. You will get an ending and after that you will be able to continue playing that save without any issues. The game won't boot you to the main menu anymore.

This means that it is now pretty much impossible to get all unlocks on one save, since you won't have enough time to do everything. But you will still be able to unlock multiple items on one save if you plan ahead, use imprints and select your traits carefuly.

And since the game ends in a set amount of time, I added a handy poput that shows at the start of each week, telling you how many weeks you have left.

The trait system will be a true game changer. You can see the rough trait ideas I had if you expand the arrow below.

As you can see, it is quite a lot. If you have ideas for new traits, write them here and I might add them.