One more news update for 2021. Its been a long year with a lot of updates and changes throughout, but well get into that later. There isnt a ton to talk about for this month. December tends to be slow with the holidays taking over the latter half of the month. Still, I have been getting things done, just nothing spectacular, I guess. Combat is still coming along. Monsters are mostly all squared away in terms of what they do. Bosses have also been setup in most ways, I think Im missing an idea for 1 or 2 at this point. Theres also just been some general refinement of the systems relating to combat. The longer I work on combat the more I seem to simplify it. I dont want to make it too straightforward obviously but some parts of the system in terms of progression, balance, and player stats were more obtuse than anything so theyve been modified or done away with for what I think will make a smoother experience. This is a farming sim after all, not a super complex JRPG. Aside from slogging through combat creation Ive been working on some other things as well. There are several bugs that are being addressed. Outside of that Ive got a few visual updates to the game that should add some nice touches. In the future Id like to look into more things like this its just a matter of finding the time as usually there are more important issues to address. Aside from the visuals, Ive got some new NPCs in the works. Currently, there are two that will be added next patch but there may be more depending on how things go. Both should also have a few quests accompanying them as well as two interiors because they cant live/work in a black void, although it would admittedly be way easier for me. I think thats mostly it as far as things worth mentioning specifically. While I cant make a guarantee Im hoping there will be a patch in January. Its somewhat dependent on a few art assets being made, but Id guess that wont be a huge issue. That marks the end of the new stuff. This next part was something I found interesting from a developer perspective. Given that its the end of the year I figured it might be a good time to look back. I keep daily backups of Verdant Village. So, I went back to what Verdant Village was at the start of the year to see the differences. I also looked back at the earliest build of the game ever which is a hilarious white screen with some moving blocks on it. In any case I dont pay a ton of attention to changes made over long periods of time. Once a feature is in the game, I eventually forget that it wasnt there at some point. Looking back at the old build and the patch notes over the year I found it interesting to see what was actually changed. Below is a list of the bigger items that have been added to the game over the year. I apologize if this seems self-indulgent, I dont mean to inflate my ego or anything I just found it interesting and thought others might as well. Anyway, over the course of 2021 Verdant Village has seen the following changes.

• 3 Zones (which I wont name for spoiler reasons)
• 4 New Archeology Artifacts
• 3 NPCs (Petra, Isabel, and Graham)
• 2 Shops
• 10 Quests
• The Fermentation System
• The Buffs System
• Fisheries
• Fish Traps
• Hunting Refinement (smoking, drying, and marinading meat)
• 33 Perks
• Minor Archeology Artifacts
• The Windmill System
• A Variety Of New Furniture
• A Set Of Fish For The Mines
• Cocoa Trees
• Barley And Rye
• The Mines Overhaul
• Fishing System Overhaul
• UI Upgrades
• Alchemy System Rework
• Buildable Silo
• Truffle System Overhaul
• Forage And Surface Ore Changes
• A Slew Of QoL
• An Even Larger Slew Of Bug Fixes

Listing things out like that makes it seem sort of small actually. I think condensing down Bug Fixes and QoL into two lines is the cause of that. Looking back at the patch notes bug fixes alone were pretty much always multi page lists. Its also occurred to me while making this just how many things were reworked in large ways, which I cant say I planned to do from the outset. Looking back at this is a bit telling, I think. A lot of my time was spent fixing bugs or reworking systems. I dont want to set myself up here, but I think 2022 will be far more focused on additions rather than fixes or changes. Of course, Ill fix whatever crops up but I think things are reasonably stable, bar a couple of outstanding issues. At this point most of the major systems are in place. Major systems are something I define as a system that will take me multiple weeks to code and setup. There were several of these in the past year, the mines rework, fermentation, hunting refinement, alchemy rework, etc. At the moment I can foresee a few more large systems, such as combat, the topic and general conversation/cutscene/romance system, one that I wont mention because I havent talked about it yet, and the compendium, which wont be hard so much as just a lot of stuff. Keep in mind these are the large systems, it doesnt constitute other smaller things such as animal breeding, secrets, tailoring, holidays, or other things. So, there is still a lot to do but the point is a lot of this years work was squashing bugs, but another huge part was just setting up or reworking very large systems. Since there arent as many large systems to work on going forward, Ill have time to fill out the game in smaller ways, more NPCs, zones, and things to populate the areas. Essential a lot of whats been done I would call framework. Once the frame work is in place its very easy to create things within it. So with any luck that means more content faster. All that said Im excited to get started on 2022. I think a lot of cool things are going to be added to Verdant Village this year. With any luck you all will have the same opinion. As always, thanks for sticking with me through the bugs and development process. I appreciate all the feedback, reviews, reports, and everything else. This game is something Ive wanted to make since I was like 11 so Im happy I finally get to do that and share it with people. I hope you all had a good 2021 (or as good as it could be with Covid), and I wish you all a happy new year as well.

[ 2021-12-29 21:08:53 CET ] [ Original post ]