This Week in the Forest! #60

BRO, how does time go so dang fast!

OK here's what we've been up to, Starting with a Word from Vixel!

1/17 weekly report:

Happy mid-month to all! Last week I crunched to close the gap on our Upgrade project and got us closer to resuming monthly builds.

The good news is that the whole game lives in the Upgrade project now! *partyfox* I finished importing all the remaining code and assets from the Act 2 project, and have been working to adapt the old code to use the improved scripts.

The bad news is I underestimated how much old code needs to be changed to be compatible with the redesigned core scripts! I'll bring in something like the plant quest minigame, which does a bunch of stuff with critters, triggers, dialogue, savegames and menus, and find that it was designed around all the flaws in the original system which makes it incompatible with the improved system until I more or less rewrite the minigame.

Overall, the process of porting code into the Upgrade project has been going awesome! I've had to tweak a few designs as all the pieces come together, and that's been WAY easier to do now that the core scripts aren't spaghetti code anymore. :}

My current estimate is that it'll take another couple weeks to get all the game code updated, running and debugged, which puts us right to the end of the month. I don't want to rush things and publish something broken and buggy. I expect we'll have new builds in February - there's a bunch of backlogged content to kick that off with a bang when it happens. I'll keep crunching this week and let yall know where stuff stands in our next update!

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My side I've been doing more writing and drawing! There's a sneak peak up at top. It's near the end of the chain quest during the festival :>

SO Speaking of that Winter Event. Vixel and I were chatting about how we're gonna integrate it since it's NOT a campaign quest, yet it plays like an entire quest chain. So we're gonna use this as a test for how we'll be setting up our Act V quests.

If y'all recall, Act V will be non-linear entirely. "open world" with quests that are contained within themselves. They'll lock you out of other quests while you're on one, much like how some modern games handle it, like Red Dead 2 or something. Once your current quest line is finished, then things will open up again and you can take on any new quest. 

So our how Winter Event will behave in a similar manner. Once it's in the game, you'll be able to start the Winter quest chain, and like Act V, it'll lock you out of other quests until it's done.

Should be dope! We're stoked to see how it all plays out once it's there. Till then we'll be chomping away :>

See ya guys next week!