The Progress Of Evil - Devlog July & August

The past few months have seen a number of major improvements and progress towards the first playable demo of Pact. In no particular order, here are the highlights:

Kobold Design:

    The player faction, the Kobolds, saw refinement of their structure and visual style. Hailing naturally from caves, I wanted to evoke that sense and opted for a rough-hewn look for their structures, almost cave-like. To keep things simple in this early stage, I built four basic footprints of increasing sizes for buildings to fall into. Contrast is interesting, however, so I added in some wooden beams for a loose scaffolding. I originally considered simply logs to show their relative lack of skill, but the design philosophy behind the Kobolds is "Enthusiastic but inept". Having janky beams instead felt more in line - they're ~trying~, they're just not that good at it.

Kobolds themselves have also received and update, now having a model that properly reflects their more stumpy design. First-tier soldier units now wear piecemeal leather armor that gives them a more distinct silhouette from the workers.

Hostile AI and Camps

    A hostile AI manager was created to run the human faction - the main threat of the game. In the same stroke, camp locations were added around the world. These locations are resource-rich and desirable for settling, and the AI agrees. It will periodically send a squad of soldiers to a location they do not hold, destroy anything nearby, and build a camp site. These camp sites grow over time and eventually will begin to apply pressure to surrounding areas. This should create a natural ebb and flow to the control of the map, as well as procedurally provide challenges to the player without having to program a full multiplayer-style AI - yet.

Quests

    Perhaps the larges and most important addition was the creation of the quest system. I wanted something robust enough to allow me to create quest types and chains I hadn't thought of down the line, as well as provide easier support for modding, once we get that far along. The quest system is made of modular events, triggers, and stages that can all be configured in a number of ways. Escort, capture the flag, defense, fetch, and delivery missions (and more!) are all easily accomplished with the system. The completion of quests ties into the next system...

Factions

   Factions received their first pass in August. Factions will be present at certain locations around the map, or have certain locations that are important to them that the forces of good may decide to assault. Factions can create quests dynamically for the player to accept. Upon completion, the player receives favor with that Faction - although each has at least one rival Faction who will then lose favor with the player. Favor can currently be spent on resources and units delivered to the player, and in the future will unlock a chain of quests that will lead to the Faction joining your alliance, conferring all the bonuses, tech, units, and structures that come with them.