Oof, turns out working on a game takes a lot of time away from talking about your game.
I'm also looking forward it, looks nice and "feel" great so far. I'm curious about pacing of the game, is slow-paced? For example: you can search for action or stay in your city and build it only ?
I'm definitely trying to make this a slow paced game with short bursts of action. When your village gets attacked and you have insufficient defenses you'll definitely have some "NONONONO"-moments but most of the game is pretty chill.
I just wrote a little more about Arclands on jonkeller.itch.io/arclands and I'll post here to:
DevLog #0 - So what exactly is Arclands?Welcome to the first DevLog of Arclands! Information on what you actually do in Arclands has been sparse so I want to rectify this with this gameplay breakdown.
Arclands is a game about creating a buzzing village and becoming a powerful enough wizard to defend it. But what exactly does that mean? The gameplay of Arclands can be divided into three interwoven Pillars: Building/Managing, Exploring and Defending.
Building & Managing
When you're arriving in the Arclands you've got nothing but your little tent - it provides a place to sleep for you and a few citizens, but is in dire need for upgrading. This represents the core goal in Arclands - upgrading your keep so that your settlement can grow. A better uprgraded keep means more citizens, more buildings and more diverse jobs. All citizens joining your settlement are basic workers at first - they can do manual labor, collect resources, build stuff and generally do what you tell them. With a more upgraded settlement your citizens can also take up more specialized jobs, such as farmer, forester, herbalist, potion seller...
It's a start!To upgrade your keep you need an ever increasing amount of different resources. Most of these can be collected by basic citizens – but there are important resources only found deeper in the Arclands. To harvest precious Wizstone for example you have to venture out into the wilderness yourself. Be sure to be prepared though!
Exploring
There are many more things found outside of your little city – you can find treasure, artifacts and all sorts of interesting people and dark, ancient secrets.
Artifacts can be aquired through various ways.Artifacts are the greatest treasure waiting for you in the Arclands. These are special items you can find in the wilderness, which you can put on display on altars in your city. Once they are placed on an altar they unveil their magic power – some may heal nearby citizens, others may summon the undead to work your farms or shoot lightning at enemies.
This artifact heals your units.Defending
The creatures inhabiting the Arclands are attracted by the magic power emitted by your settlement. Thats why you were banished here - because it's a damn bad place for wizards to live. If you grow your village to fast without thinking about how you're defending it you're gonna have a bad time.
A little settlement under attack!When your keep is destroyed you loose - but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Depending on how big you grew your village you get Experience Points to spend on new magic abilities. You also get to scavenge some of your artifacts, citizens and resources so you can progress your next settlement faster.
I hope this little overview gives u a little more understanding about what you're going to do in Arclands! Looking forward to sharing more information with y'all soon.