Dev Diary [#29]
Welcome back, frens! It’s been more than two weeks since my last Diary. But there was a reason for that. The more I played this game, the more I felt something was wrong, not pleasant. Then I realized it was mainly the time progression part, the day and night cycle, and the overall feeling that you are being pushed to make quick actions. I liked that every action shortens your day, so you have to be strategic in what you prioritize during that time. However, everything put together as it was, felt weird.
Progress Report
I took a pencil and started drawing game flows and processes related to gameplay. I discussed that with my close friends, tweaked it based on their feedback, and here we are. We have our new game loop.
If you are dev reading this, and if I can give you a little advice: Do not rush this part. Take your time. Nothing’s wrong with redesigning it multiple times. I used good old paper and pencil and then converted all that into Miro.
Honestly, it took me several days, and only after that, I started the coding part. And what’s the result? Let’s deep-dive into it.
Gameplay Loop: THE DAY
This is the most important part of the gameplay—a foundation. It will determine how the rest of the gameplay feels and how the other mechanisms work. Every other gameplay loop is based on this one.
What are days in our terminology, and how do we use them?
You can also imagine this as turns.
Generally said, the game progression is based on the days/turns.
For example, crops will take one day to grow to their next stage (if watered). Trees grow based on these days, too, and it takes them three days to fully recover if depleted. Another one: If you craft a campfire that lasts one day, it will disappear after you wake up.
But it’s not only resources. After you complete a dungeon, it will lock for a few days. Some areas unlock only in specific timeframes. New game events or challenges are triggered every “morning,” and so on.
What’s completely new, though, is the energy system.
Energy System
You have limited energy for what you can achieve during the day.
Entering a new day will give you a full energy bar (for example, 100 energy). You can spend energy on actions like mining, crop planting, crop watering, foraging, crafting, alchemy, and so on.
Each action costs energy, some more, some less. The values vary. Once you deplete your energy, you can no longer do such actions.
I posted a sneak peek on our Twitter with a short recording. If you haven't seen it, please take a look.
However, the day is not over just because you depleted your energy. You can still walk around, talk to NPCs, and do some “energy-cost-free” stuff.
There’s no automatic progress that will transport to the next day as it was before, either. No more ticking hours and an automatic day/night cycle. I removed that part completely.
Only you can decide when it’s the right time to progress to the next day. How? Just go to your home zone and go to sleep. Sleeping brings you to the next day, replenishes your energy bar, and progresses all other things. But why is that important?
The game challenges you to think about your next actions. Would you rather focus on farming or mining? If you plant crops and never water them while spending all your energy on other things, they will not grow the next day. But maybe that’s fine; you wanted exactly that. Prioritize. Make decisions. Be efficient.
It also serves as an excellent tool for replayability. There will be some achievements in the sense of “do-this-in-first-thirty-days”. If you miss them, the only way to achieve them is to start over and try again.
Additionally, I don’t want to force you to focus 100% on the game. I like to play a game very actively, but sometimes, I just let them run on the second monitor while doing some other stuff. In our case, you can do that without missing any important parts of the gameplay. You can watch pets doing their own stuff and play with them from time to time, but you can still be more like AFK while still staying in the present day without any major impact. I hope it makes sense.
If you wish to play like no chill, you can do that too. Simply go to sleep and proceed to the next day immediately. It’s your game; play it as you wish, and have fun.
I created this visualization as part of brainstorming and game loop design. I’ll update it as I go. There are still some open questions, but the general idea should be easily understandable.
Feel free to take a look and ask questions.
In-game Currency (Feathers)
I have been thinking about implementing in-game currency in this game for a long time. Now, it’s clear that the final answer is yes, I want it.
Why? It allows us to do more and motivates the players to do some things. As a product owner, it also allows me to reward players, either randomly as a surprise element or after achieving some challenges.
The next question was, what kind of currency do I want? Golds? Money? Well, I went for feathers. I think they suit our fantasy theme based on Krákas. We are originally a bird species, after all.
Fallout has bottle caps; we have feathers.
The third question was: Do I want one global currency or more? That was a tough one, for sure. Well, in the end, I went for three tiers: Silver, Gold, and Diamond.
10 silver feathers convert to gold, and 10 gold feathers convert to diamond, all automatically.
But you can collect all of them separately. They can drop from enemies with some chance. They can even drop from trees or other resources as an additional reward. You can sell unwanted things in shops for feathers. And you can buy new shiny things with them in shops, too. And much more. Like in other games.
That opened another topic: loot tables, looting, and item drops. Altogether called a Looting system. I enhanced it a lot.
Looting 2.0
What’s new? Well, almost everything. First of all, you can now get multiple drops from one resource. Also, each item has a probability of dropping.
Examples:
- A tree will always give you wood/logs. But also, there’s a little chance for a second one to drop and another slight chance for dropping a silver feather.
- Crops can drop seeds now together with the traditional resources.
- Enemies can drop items as well. But in this case, it’s not guaranteed. Try your luck.
- If you decide to destroy fences you've built before, there’s a chance to drop some materials back.
An even more enhanced version of the looting system will come live with the first boss addition to the game. The base is already prepared for that, but bosses will work slightly differently from basic resources and basic enemies.
Conclusion
Tought, but again, very important changes. I'm saying this almost always, but what can I do when it's true? I have two testers now, and we all agreed that the feeling from playing the game feels different from the previous version. The game feels more mature. There are plenty of areas to improve everything, but let's put some other foundations in place—for example, shops for buying and selling stuff. Without pets, we are missing the main element, so it's time to bring them back… and so on.
I haven't created a plan for Dev Diary [#30] yet, so it will be a surprise for all of us, but it should be an interesting one.
Thanks for reading all that, and see you next time, frens!
