Happy 2024 friends of the omins! It's time to share my thought about the past year and talk about my main goals for this new year.

My goals for the 2024

They are essentially two: publishing the first demo and finally launch the kickstarter campaign. These goals were planned for the last year, but I have decided to include more stuff to the game in order to give you a better idea of how is going to be. I believe that having the demo to be tested by players and streamers will boost the visibility of the game. There are not so much stuff left to complete the demo: I'd like to improve some buildings, make another pass on the user interface, and finally prepare the first demo mission with the design of the demo map. I'd like to have the demo ready by April 2024 and try to launch the kickstarter between May and June(depending on how fast the game gain visibility thanks to the demo). As always, if you wish to check what I'm currently doing you can go at this link.

What I'm happy with and what I'm not

Overall I am happy with the way the game is shaping up. In my opinion, it has the potential to embrace different game genres: from real-time strategy to sandbox, from god game to survival. Thanks to this flexibility, my idea is include different game modes and objectives: the classic deathmatch mode in which all enemy factions must be destroyed; a game mode in which the player must survive all the waves of monsters attacking his village; a game mode in which the player must lead all his omins from one point to another in an huge map full of dangers, and so on. The game mode I was thinking for the demo is the destruction of four magic seals scattered in the game map in order to open a portal that permits the omins to escape to the next world. Every seal is obviously protected by enemies and the player will be attacked during all his stay in this world. On the other side, I'm not that happy with the time required by the development, I Think I underestimated it because this is my first game I make. I know this project is ambitious for a single person and I may need some collaborators once ended the kickstarter campaign. Also working with a publisher may help a lot for all kind of support they can provide to the development.

Thinking about some features

Many things have been completed so far, but still many are left to do. Also there are some features that I need to better define before present them. For example the role of the Gardians (the huge beasts that help the omins in their journey). At the beginning, I was evaluating something similar to the creatures in the old Black & White games. But I started to think that this concept does not fit well in my project. That worked exceptionally in Black & White 1 when the creature plays a fundamental role to win each map. In Black & White 2 it already lost a lot of importance due to the introduction of armies and other mechanics (I was even forgetting the existence of the creature while playing). That's why I need to better think about the purpose of the Guardian in The Omins. This does not mean that the Gardians will be excluded by the game, but will be presented later. On the other hand, I was thinking about the introduction of Heroes: omins with special abilities and equipping special weapons and armors. I'm evaluating if to make it definitively killable or if it can reborn after some time it has been killed.

What I've done in the last two months

Here a list of the main stuff I added to the game during November and December 2023.

• An omin can either flee or surrender to enemies when too scared. After surrendered, omins will take some time to calm down and behave normally. But also other omins can talk and encourage them so that they calms down immediately.
• Some animals can be tamed and added to the anifarms of the faction. The taming has a success rate depending on the animal and the ability of the omin. However, some dangerous animals must be neutralized before trying to tame them.
• The tamer is a new type of job that can be assigned to omins. These are the only omins that can tame animals and they have a dedicated workers hut.
• New animals added: bears, goats, bighorns and deers. Moreover, sheep have been separated in female sheep, male sheep (ram) and young sheep (lamb). Now carnivorous animals will hunt omins or other animals for their meat. New animations have been added and others already existing (for example walking and running) have been improved.
• Reactions to dangers have been enhanced. Now omins and animals flee when they are in front of an enemy much stronger than them. This does not apply to soldiers that will take into the account their current health, the number of allies around them and difference in their combat level. The reaction of animals depends on their temper: aggressive, defensive, coward, selfish, prudent. I'm planning to add buttons so that the player can change the reaction to dangers in soldiers.
• Animals and omins now can freeze when repeatedly attacked with ice magic. When attacked with piercing and cutting weapons can start to bleed loosing energy every second for a short period of time. Later, other status effect will come, for example burns, shocks, paralysis, poison and so on.
• New objects have been added: new resources like pumpkins, eggplants, oranges, prinkly pears, dates, coconuts; new trees like pines and palms; new bushes and new types of plants like vines and cactus.
• I improved the aspect of the map and geographic elements like mountains, seas, lakes, oasis and beaches. Moreover, the map will have now also hills and depressions.
• Several bug fixes, improvements and changes under the hood.

Some clips and screenshots

Videos

[previewyoutube=6sOY25wzsxc;leftthumb]Bears... so lovely - Youtube[/previewyoutube][previewyoutube=50ifocnADa8;leftthumb]Bighorns - Youtube [/previewyoutube][previewyoutube=kY0nROdXbyE;leftthumb]Frozen to death - YouTube[/previewyoutube]

Screenshots