next »

[vivaladav]

New month, new development update for Virtueror!

In January I spent quite some time implementing the new dialog to create units and structures.
You might have already seen the mock-up I posted in my previous update (if not scroll up a bit to see it), but during the development I tweaked a few things and this is how it looks now:

The new version can show an extra element, it has room for more attributes, all elements have a title and a description and colors are used to highlight what resources are sufficient and what are in need.

I worked on several other new features, in particular 4 new structures and new graphics for some elements of the map. You can find a full list of changes in this blog post on Steam.

All the new stuff also allowed me to update the game screenshots for the Steam page. These are some of them:

[Alain]

Things are coming together nicely! A detail I spotted is that you changed the colors of the mountains from gray to slightly brown-ish. That goes such a long way and makes the world feel a lot more alive to me!

[vivaladav]

Things are coming together nicely! A detail I spotted is that you changed the colors of the mountains from gray to slightly brown-ish. That goes such a long way and makes the world feel a lot more alive to me!

Thanks Alain!
Even if there's still a lot to do I am trying to improve the game graphics when I can.
Nothing is final yet of course, but hopefully the next iteration will make things more interesting, especially if I can put together a basic level editor by the end of this month.

Gamedev is a marathon, at least for me.

[logophil]

New month, new development update for Virtueror!

Great to see this progress! And good idea to create scenes in various colours to use for Steam page screenshots, definitely helps give the impression of variety.

[vivaladav]

Great to see this progress! And good idea to create scenes in various colours to use for Steam page screenshots, definitely helps give the impression of variety.

Thanks!
Hopefully I'll be able to add more variety soon, but I am happy with the recent progress, so no rush.

[vivaladav]

Development proceeds at full-speed (almost) and as pre-announced in my latest dev log, I am pondering if using procedural generation for the maps of Virtueror or not. I also asked to the people in the Discord server of the game what they think about it.



Click on the image to see the 3 options, then feel free to join us on Discord to vote or to comment here if you want to share your opinion.

[Alain]

I voted for C on your Discord, which seems to be the preference of the majority

[vivaladav]

I recently published a new dev log on Steam that describes the progress I made during the month of February.

The main news is the creation of a map editor, even if for now it's at a very early stage and its features are extremely limited...

The editor will be fully integrated with the game, so everyone will be able to use it to create new maps.
As Alain suggested in his latest comment, the game community voted for a mix of manual editing and procedural generation and that's what I will be working on. I will tell you more about it with the next updates.

Other changes you will find in this dev log involve the addition of a new unit, new in-game UI elements, more work on some RPG features of the units and a few of other minor changes.
You can read the full details in the dev log where you will also find what's planned for the current month.

[logophil]

The map editor looks cool, has a nice SimCity 2000 vibe! I'm sure it will be a draw, a lot of players seem to enjoy these kinds of customisation options in my experience. And of course it'll be a useful tool for you to use as well when designing the handcrafted levels.

[Alain]

As Alain suggested in his latest comment, the game community voted for a mix of manual editing and procedural generation and that's what I will be working on. I will tell you more about it with the next updates.

We the people are happy our voices are heard

[bacon]

I recently published a new dev log on Steam that describes the progress I made during the month of February.

The main news is the creation of a map editor, even if for now it's at a very early stage and its features are extremely limited...

The editor will be fully integrated with the game, so everyone will be able to use it to create new maps.
As Alain suggested in his latest comment, the game community voted for a mix of manual editing and procedural generation and that's what I will be working on. I will tell you more about it with the next updates.

Other changes you will find in this dev log involve the addition of a new unit, new in-game UI elements, more work on some RPG features of the units and a few of other minor changes.
You can read the full details in the dev log where you will also find what's planned for the current month.

From one isometric dev who made a level editor to another isometric dev who is making a level editor, 

[vivaladav]

The map editor looks cool, has a nice SimCity 2000 vibe! I'm sure it will be a draw, a lot of players seem to enjoy these kinds of customisation options in my experience. And of course it'll be a useful tool for you to use as well when designing the handcrafted levels.

I did a bit of research and it seems it's a feature appreciated by Steam gamers.
Also, as you said, it's something I really need for the levels, so why not making it available to them too?!

We the people are happy our voices are heard

I wasn't joking when I talked about community-driven development!

From one isometric dev who made a level editor to another isometric dev who is making a level editor, 

Cause making a whole strategy game is not enough, right?

[vivaladav]

Today I published a new dev update on Steam where I talk about the progress I made this month.

The biggest change this month is a brand new UI that changed from this initial style:



to this new one:



Before implementing this new version in game I asked on the Discord server what people prefer and the results were pretty clear as 91% of the voters preferred the new version (no luck this time Alain ).

This month I have been pretty productive and the other changes include a minimap (as you can seen in the previous screenshots), 2 new structures, showing attack range of units and defensive towers and also several changes in the map editor.

You can check out all the changes and see the full details in the full dev update on Steam.

[Alain]

Before implementing this new version in game I asked on the Discord server what people prefer and the results were pretty clear as 91% of the voters preferred the new version (no luck this time Alain ).

Damn, maybe next time Wow, the full devlog on Steam is quite lengthy, I will take a close look later!

[vivaladav]

I am happy to update this thread after so many months!

I haven't posted in the last 9 months because I have been living a different life. I have been busy full time as skydiving instructor.
To be honest I might have been working on my game in the meantime, but I decided to take a sort of sabbatical from the tech world, so I didn't.

Things have changed again in the last couple of months and now I am working as software developer and developing Virtueror in my spare time, again. Because of that I will need to keep my marketing and production time to a minimum for now, in order to focus on development. That means that I won't be posting here every week as in the past, but I will make sure to post at least a dev update once a month and about any major news.

If you haven't seen this thread before and you think you might like this game I would appreciate if you could wishlist and follow it on Steam.

See you at the end of the month for the December update!

[vivaladav]

Things are going better than expected with the development, so I decided to push myself a little and I planned to release a first alpha build of the game in about a month (13 Jan 2023).

This is the current roadmap for the alpha release:

TODO - must have

• Cell conquest based on waypoints
• Wall building based on waypoints
• AI to build units
• AI to move units
• Handle packaged data
• Linux package
• Windows build
• Windows package

TODO - optional

• Basic graphic settings
• AI to build structures
• SFX support
• Music support
• Fix potential crashes

This first build will be available only to the people who joined my Discord server. If you want to join use this invite link.

[vivaladav]

It's been 9 months since my last dev update, but today I published a new one on Steam where I talk about the progress I made this month.

The main good news is that I have already completed all the coding tasks I planned for the first alpha release, which means that will go out, as planned, on the 13th of January 2023.

If I had to pick a new feature to represent this update I would probably go for the brand new AI, which is moving its first steps on the field.
At the moment the AI can only do the following things:

• Create a new unit
• Conquer a resource generator
• Connect a resource generator to its base to extract resources

You can see it doing them in the following GIF:

It's not much and it's far from being completed and "smart", but it's a start and I have to admit it's very rewarding to see it doing things on its own.

Other major changes are:

• A new mission screen
• Wall building based on waypoints
• Cell conquest based on waypoints
• A new settings screen

You can read more about them in the full dev log on Steam.

Finally, I am also happy to announce that after this month's progress I am changing the completion icon of this thread to 30%. I am still very far from 100%, but progress is progress!

[vivaladav]

I am happy to announce that the first alpha build of Virtueror is now available for testing!

To be part of the alpha testing you can join the Discord server of the game, where you will get access to a Windows and a Linux build.

People who will take part in alpha testing and will provide useful feedback will be rewarded with a Discord role and mentioned in credits.

[Alain]

Nice, congratulations on the alpha build! 

[vivaladav]

Nice, congratulations on the alpha build! 

Thanks Alain, it's been a first, but important step toward the (future) release of the game and very helpful in terms of feedback.