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Version 0.9.05 at 24th of November 2024

This version got somewhat delayed because of me being busy with my main work, having less free time for indie coding. Well, but here are the bugfixed and new additions;

ADDED: In the XML task definitions we can now have specific conditions on who can participate in the task. Currently this is used for the hunting trip - only teenagers and working age adults will participate, elders and kids will stay at home.
ADDED: Tooltip info shown when you hover the mouse over a family member. The tooltip will appear after 0.75 seconds.
IMPROVED: The SELECT AREA TO indicator now does it best not to obscure the chosen area.
IMPROVED: Task area selection no more interferes with the target area of adjacent planned tasks.
IMPROVED: The modding script switch-case structure and nested code blocks are now handled in a more robust manner.
ADDED: If the map camera is sent to return to a home or to a bookmark, manually moving the map will cancel the automatic movement.
FIXED: Game speed is now properly saved and loaded. There was a bug which caused the chosen game speed being always overridden by the default value.
FIXED: The second year turnip roots are supposed to yield seeds when harvested. That was broken but is now fixed.
FIXED: When selling items the sold items were often picked from wrong quality group. This is now fixed.
FIXED: Tasks targeting an area could cause an occasional crash in untypical conditions. This is now fixed.
FIXED: There were occasional crashes related to bartering,crafting, hunting and some other tasks. These should be fixed now.

Also, since the previous version added proper ailment and fatigue simulation for the wild animals, this version continues with related additions to the big game hunting. There are still occasional oddities with the textual representation, so those will be fixed in the future versions.

[ 2024-11-24 21:22:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version 0.9.04 update at 13th of October 2024

Mostly bugfixes and minor UI polish. Although fixing spear hunting sent me upgrading some of the underlying logic.

ADDED: switch - case control structure to the modding language.
ADDED: The modding language now has basics of (nested) code blocks.
IMPROVED: The hunting simulation was either a lethal hit or miss. Now there is possibility of scoring a non-lethal wound.
IMPROVED: Wild animals now have the same ailment simulation as humans. Ailment penalty affects their movement speed, so a wounded animal is easier prey for endurance hunting. And, especially with severe wounds it is likely that the wounded animal will eventually just succumb to the injuries.
ADDED: skill MELEE - when hunting big game, the effective skill is a combination of the general melee combat skill and the specific skill for the weapon used. So, if you are good at melee combat, you get some advantage even when using a weapon you are not familiar with.
IMPROVED: Added more safety checks to handle problems when initializing the game
IMPROVED: When choosing task LOOK, the look dialog no more appears at the center of the screen, but next to the chosen tile. While the dialog is open left-clicking another tile will update the look to that tile. Right-clicking will close the dialog and open the task menu. (Or, the other way around, depending on mouse handedness chosen in settings)
IMPROVED: The LOOK panel in the UI now has a fixed height.
IMPROVED: The message log now auto-scrolls to the bottom to show the latest messages.
FIXED: There was an occasional crash when crafting clothes. I believe all the reported cases are now fixed.
FIXED: The spouse candidates got their name, age and sex assigned and displayed inconsistently. This is now fixed.
FIXED: The chosen amount is now correctly handled when crafting clothing.
FIXED: When clicking a tile with animals, and if the animals moved away from that tile, then you chose task MOVE the game crashed. This is now fixed, instead of crashing the task just gets cancelled.

[ 2024-10-13 19:40:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version 0.9.03 update at 25th of September 2024

Linux version now works!
Deconstructing a building triggered a crash. This is now fixed.
Improved the launch sequence when running the game for the very first time. It is now more fail-safe also when the latest OpenGL features are not available.

[ 2024-09-25 06:27:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Quick bugfixes at 23rd of Septemer 2024

FIXED: Craft -> Textiles -> Linen / Leather / Wool / Fur Clothing caused the game to crash. This is now fixed.
FIXED: Starting a new homestead caused a crash if the old folks had domestic animals - the crash was because of AI taking control over the old family, but failing to handle animals. The crash is now fixed, although there still is plenty of room to improve the AI and it's ways of animal husbandry.
FIXED: Pressing ESC when choosing what to sow caused the game to crash. This is now fixed.
FIXED: Butchering now works when selected from the animal info dialog.
FIXED: Barter menu no more shows amount select widgets for player items which the NPC is not interested in.

[ 2024-09-22 22:11:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Raise a family and live off the land

[previewyoutube=W9leiOC8loU;full][/previewyoutube] Establish your homestead in the pristine woodlands of 1200 CE Finland. Hunt, fish, farm and forage for food. Craft tools, barter for supplies. Raise a family, teach your offspring the skills of the self-sufficient life. Send your adult children to start homestead of their own. Once your clan grows, you can freely switch which family unit you play as. There are no combat elements; cold, hunger and accidents are your only enemy. The UI is mouse-driven, aided by hotkeys. There is both 3D and 2D view, you can change back and forth during the game play

Some events are represented as small interactive stories
Almost all of the game content is fully moddable by editing XML-formatted text files. This is the first stable release after the beta stage. Despite all the testing it is likely that there still are some bugs lurking there, waiting to be found. Fixing bugs will be the top priority for the coming weeks. All the main game features are implemented. More content will be added and existing features added once time allows after the bugfixes. Steam Workshop and Steam Cloud Save integration are also planned. Mac version is in the works, but currently hindered by hardware problems - it has been classical starving artist development on a shoe-string budget. Unfortunately my old MacBook can't handle the app notarization process which is required for distribution. I do believe this is just a temporarily obstacle and I will find a way to handle this. Cheers! - Erkka from Enormous Elk

[ 2024-09-20 10:41:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

To be released at 20th of September

Looking forward to raise your family and to live off the land in the pristine woodlands of 13th century Savo? Well, it is time to get yourself ready to craft, build, hunt and barter, for Ancient Savo will be released at 20th of September 2024 There is both 3D and 2D view, combined with occasional text-based mini adventures. All the main game content is already implemented, and more will be added after the release.
Windows and Linux versions will be the first to arrive. Mac version is in the works. There are still some technical problems to be solved, so not yet sure if we get the Mac version ready by 20th.

[ 2024-09-07 08:37:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Skill system and modding script developments

Each family member has skills, and their skill level affects the speed and quality of their work. When people work together, the lesser skilled ones (typically children) gain more XP when they are accompanied by more talented persons. Also, they perform better when instructed and guided by others. This is affected by the parenting skill of the teacher and the general skill of the student. Some skills, like smelting iron, are so hard to learn that it might easily take a few generations of accumulating experience to master the secrets. A recent addition is pottery skill, and the related items and tasks. Crafted clay items need to be fired in a kiln to turn them to ceramics.
More ailments and accidents are being added. The likelihood of an accident taking place is affected mostly by character fatigue, and partially also by skill. An accident can simply spawn an ailment, or it can trigger an interactive text story, so that player decisions affect the outcome. Skills, ailments, accidents and interactive text stories are defined in XML, just like other game elements. That makes them fully moddable. It is possible to add new skills, or to modify the learning curve of each skill. Same with items, terrain types, tasks etc - the modding system allows adding new entries, and also adding new variables to existing entries. The modding language can handle variables and logical conditions. For example, the likelihood of this or that task outcome can depend on a combination of variables. A recent addition is GOTO statement which can be used to conditionally control the script flow. The development continues with improving the AI. Now the AI can keep the family alive raising a child to adulthood, then passing the game control for the player. Next the AI needs to be adapted to run the other clan families while the player is taking care of one family unit.

[ 2024-08-26 16:45:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Trailer video published

Trailer with upgraded graphics

It took quite a bit of work to get rounder tile edges and 3D optimization about right. But finally the graphics works well enough for a public trailer, showing actual game play footage. [previewyoutube=W9leiOC8loU;full][/previewyoutube] I wanted to have the 3D map, as I was thinking how to best visualize hills. And in this game hills matter - snow thaws first on the sunny southern slope, the northern side of a hill tends to be less favorable for growing crops. And in early summer lowlands are more prone to night time temperature falling below freezing. Although the trailer shows a 3D map view, the good old 2D is also there, and you can freely switch between the modes.

Next in development

Once you send your offspring to start a homestead of their own, you can freely switch the game focus to play as any of the family units of your family tree. But currently the non-focused families will do nothing, so they need a bit of an AI. I try to design it so that when you go visit the other families they can tell you stories about what has happened in their lives since you last met. And if they are low on resources, or if they have abundance of something they could themselves pay a visit to the player family to exchange goods. So the AI should enable a mutual networks of social interaction between the families of the player clan. Some of the social dynamics will be added to the market place as well. This will be connected to the skill system. It will take a few generations to become a master in some skills, like blacksmithing or clay pottery. And I think that if the player brings their masterwork crafts to the marketplace, the word would spread, and the next time the player shows up at the marketplace the NPCs would actively seek to barter for the famous high quality items by the player family. Naturally, this kind of aspects alone could take a year of full-time coding to develop in full detail. But I'm not planning to post-pone the Steam release that far, but aim to implement the basics of AI and social dynamics, and then release some updates to add content and improved mechanics.

The distribution model and version numbers

I believe in the old-school approach: pay once, get the full game and all the future updates. No paid extra content, no micro-transactions, no in-app purchases, no adds, no strings attached. The release version won't be labelled Early Access, nor beta, nor alpha funding. Just a plain release, with version number 0.9 (or a bit higher, depending on how the beta testing goes), and then a road-map to get to the final 1.0 release. Once the game reaches the 1.0 stage there will be no more content added, just basic maintenance like bugfixes.

Well, this is the basics - more news on the on-going development in the coming weeks! Yours Erkka from Enormous Elk

[ 2024-07-22 20:36:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome!

Glad to see you here!

Most of the Ancient Savo core feature are already implemented. What is still missing is some features of the AI. And many of the core features are waiting to be expanded - for example, at the moment of writing this the only farm animals are sheep. Goats, cows, pigs and horses are planned, and I try to get them added before the September release. The September Steam release version is aimed to be stable version, in the sense that all of the core features are implemented, there is enough beta testing so that all known bugs have been fixed. But it is very likely that the first release version will have some minor features missing, and future updates will add them. It will likely be some time in 2025 when all of the planned features are fully implemented.

So, this is what we have now:

Well, but what is to be expected before September?

A trailer video is planned for the coming weeks. And later on there will be additional videos about specific topics like the modding system. Development news will be posted once a month here at Steam. And a some form of on-line Questions and Answers event will take place when we are getting close to the release. Stay tuned for the news, and feel free to post your comments and questions in the forums! Yours Erkka from Enormous Elk

[ 2024-04-29 19:55:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ancient Savo

Erkka Lehmus Developer

Enormous Elk Publisher

September 2024 Release

Action Indie Strategy Casual RPG Adventure Simulation F2P Sports MMO Racing Singleplayer Multiplayer Coop EA Tags

Game News Posts: 9

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
🕹️ Partial Controller Support
🎮 Full Controller Support

Positive (12 reviews)

Steam Store

Public Linux Depots:

[0 B]

An open-ended survival and resource management game, focused on raising a family. The game takes place in 1200 CE Eastern Finland, in the pristine woodlands of a region called Savo.

The story

A young family has decided to establish their home in remote woodlands. They pack a set of essential tools and row up the local waterways deeper into the wilderness. After a few days of rowing they feel that they are far enough to have a peaceful spot of their own. Fishing, foraging and hunting provide food. But how to turn pristine woodlands to arable land? Fell down trees, burn them and the ashes will make the soil fertile. Agriculture is a lot of work but a decent harvest will keep the family fed through the long dark winter. And then there are children! More nutrition is needed to keep the little ones fed. And as they grow, they learn skills from the parents and start contributing to the workforce. Eventually the offspring will be old enough to marry and to start families of their own.

Game mechanics

The time-scale of the game is weeks. In-game years flow rather smoothly so you can easily see your building projects advancing and your family growing. Although, it won't always be that easy - harsh weather can ruin your crops, accidents can cause injury. No combat - the cold, hunger and accidents being the only enemies. The game play is about managing the most precious resource - time. Work long days to get that house finished, and run the increased risk of accidents due to overworking when tired. Or work at lower pace and run the risk of your family suffering from cold when the autumn sets in.

The family members will handle a lot of tasks routinely. But you can adjust how many hours are spent with daily routines like household chores, basic maintenance, parenting, resting, and foraging - the remaining time will be available for tasks which you plan. Tasks include crafting, building, farming, hunting and so on. Grow linen, spin yarn, weave textiles, craft clothes. Dig clay to make pottery. Burn a kiln to make charcoal. Collect bog iron to produce iron ingots, forge spearheads and other such essential tools.

Once a year there will be a market event, which you can choose to go to. At the market you can barter for tools and farm animals.

When the kids grow up you can continue playing as your off-spring - either staying to support the elder generation, or leaving to start a new homestead. Once your clan grows you can freely choose which family to play as. Or, you can even choose to play as the spirits of the late ancestors.

The UI is mouse-driven, assisted with customizable hotkeys. The game map can be viewed either in 2D or 3D, you can freely switch while playing. Some game elements are simulated as small text-based stories, where you choose from options, and your decisions will affect how the story unfolds.

Modding

There is a rather flexible modding system based on editing text files in xml format. You can modify and add game elements like items, animals, ailments, crafting recipes and tasks. You can even write your custom stories if you like to. Graphics and the appearance of UI elements can also be modded to ones liking. 3D models can be added in glb / gltf format.

Localization

The UI is designed to support translations.

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Debian 11. Ubuntu 20.04. or equivalent
Processor: 64-bit 1 GHzMemory: 1 GB RAM
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: 1024 x 600 openGL 2.0
Storage: 200 MB available space
RECOMMENDED SETUPOS: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Processor: 64-bit 1 GHzMemory: 8 GB RAM
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: 1920 x 1080 openGL 4.3
Storage: 200 MB available space

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