News on upcoming updates for Foundation as well as some further information on what we have been up to over the last few weeks.
December Update News
1.6 Content patch is now live!
Hello everyone!
Today we are announcing the release of Alpha 1.6.23.1021!
If you have been reading the recent Devlogs and News you will have seen that we have been working on a content patch for the recent 1.6 Mineral & Craftsmanship update.
This patch will provide some polish to the 1.6 update and bring with it some highly requested quality of life improvements as well as additional features. You can check out the summary of the patch contents below, which includes a full changelog.
Promotion Sorting
We have received many requests for an improved promotion window more specifically the ability to sort promotions.
This content patch will now allow you to sort the population by various parameters whilst also being able to easily focus on a villager’s workplace, their house, and the villager themselves, making it much easier to identify those you wish to promote.
More Names!
Another request that has been high on the agenda has been for more names. You will now find 1000 new names added to the game, so you should not be seeing Female #44 or Male #808 for some time. Note: More work on names will come with a planned family feature in a future update.
Additionally, we have added the ability for you to rename villagers. You can now have all your family, friends or community members living in your villages.
Masterpiece Polish
Masterpieces were introduced in the recent 1.6 Content Update and this patch aims to polish up the Masterpiece systems as well as some visuals and an added bonus feature.
Masterpieces are sets of specific parts that can be added into a monument or be built as a standalone building. They are unique creations that include a bonus once built to meet certain conditions. The conditions for the bonuses have been tweaked with this patch to better suit the Masterpiece it relates to.
The Giant Gate Masterpiece has seen a little polish and now comes with additional parts for you to build the perfect entryway to your city. There is also the addition of a new wall for the Gate that will for now, be available via the walls menu once unlocked.
Melody Composer
A new melody composer can now be found in the Automated Fountain Masterpiece which will allow you to flex your musical talents and create beautiful music.
Additionally, you can now customize your church bells, controlling when the bells toll as well the tone of the bells.
Quarry Depots and Visuals
Quarries will now require a large crane be built which will act as a resource depot for the extracted resources of that quarry. Miners will store resources at these depots where they can then be used or transported to warehouses closer to your production buildings.
The stored resources within these depots will also come with improved visuals making it easier to identify the resources at-a-glance.
Improved AI
Villagers have got cleverer… bigger smarts… more intelligent, yes!
Builders will now prioritize a building site’s proximity to their builder’s workshop when looking for work. This will keep them from traveling unnecessary long distances and consequently, it also gives you a better opportunity to optimize the positioning of your builder’s workshops.
Needs fulfillment has also been improved with new AI behavior that will see villagers searching out close-by needs based on the fulfillment of their previous need. This should improve the overall behavior flow and efficiency of villagers in their free time.
New Animations
The team is always looking at ways to improve the Hurricane engine and one such improvement has enabled us to integrate animations into moving workstation parts. This new tool will allow us to bring a whole new level of immersion into your villages.
You will find a number of new animations with this patch including a couple of both new and improved, thanks to community feedback.
Help Menu Additions and Tooltips
The help menu has been tweaked overall and now includes a new section on Masterpieces. We have also added new tooltips for Masterpieces and warehouses to help explain their functions and relevant conditions.
Additionally, you will find a prompt when quitting to the menu or exiting the game. No more unintentional loss of game-time!
Bug Fixes and More
Alongside the changes above, this patch will come with a number of bug fixes and other improvements, including:
- New sounds for mining and other workplaces
- More UI tweaks, such as an improved resource list order
- Changes to the mineral distribution system when prospecting mineral nodes. For example, Iron will be much easier to find earlier in your searches.
- Multiple pathfinding fixes
- And more… a full changelog can be found below
Modding wiki
Modding documentation and changes can be found over on the modding wiki.
Changelog
Thank you to everyone that has provided feedback, crash and bug reports. All of your reports have allowed us to fix a number of issues as well as make improvements as we continue to develop Foundation.
We can’t wait to hear your melodies! Join us on our official Discord server and join in the conversation.
- Add: Allow villager renaming
- Add: Church tower bells control
- Add: Fountain sound
- Add: Giant wall – unlock wall when unlocking the masterpiece
- Add: Masterpieces topic to Help Menu
- Add: Menus – Add a “Data will be lost, are you sure?” before Exiting the game or returning to the main menu.
- Add: Missing parts of the legacy church
- Add: Musical Fountain – Musical Composer
- Add: New workstation animations & VFX
- Add: Promotion list sorting
- Add: Quarry Depots – Inventory Visual+Gems Texture
- Add: Quit to Main Menu and Exit to Desktop confirmations – Adjust texts
- Add: Utility Agent – Villager AI improved for needs fulfillment
- Add: Various tooltips
- Add: Villager Names
- Add: Warehouse/Granary tooltip
- Add: Warning panel should remember last severity selected
- Update Art – Various Masterpiece polish
- Update: Army Manager – “Army” and “Battle History” should be sticky at the top while you scroll down.
- Update: Improve builder’s priority system
- Update: Improve trade quantity inputting for high numbers
- Update: Masterpieces – Prevent unusual combinations of conditions and masterpieces
- Update: Mineral Depots – Add entrance arrows for the crane.
- Update: Monument – Legacy Rustic Church – shape and collision adjusted
- Update: Monument – Market – Market Table, of any type, should be a mandatory part of the construction.
- Update: Resource list order
- Fix: Anim – Glass Smelter – missing tool
- Fix: Audio – Different behavior when reaching speed 0 using the “-” and the “spacebar” button.
- Fix: Bailiff – Prospection tools are missing from the animation.
- Fix: Churches – Remove the priest text
- Fix: Core – Never Block House Entrance
- Fix: Deserialize and reapply crop yield bonus
- Fix: Farm Fields – Performance takes a hit when switching from Sowing to Growing.
- Fix: Fisher – Bonus is not adequately applied during bad weather, reducing the yield instead of augmenting it.
- Fix: Goldsmelter – Worker from the indoor workstation exits the building through the wall when the work cycle is done.
- Fix: Knight Statue – missing marble texture
- Fix: Major Performance issues when opening the Low Warning notifications on a large city.
- Fix: Masterpiece – Barracks construction steps can be seen floating when attached to the top of another part.
- Fix: Masterpiece – Fountain can still be unlocked even if a villager leaves during the bad weather event.
- Fix: Masterpiece – Lush Garden bonus effect is not functional and does not increase the splendor of the building.
- Fix: Masterpiece – Standalone masterpiece with the Maintenance effect will display it in the global game rule when it shouldn’t.
- Fix: Masterpiece condition – Must be part of Great Hall not updating in general tab when assigning function
- Fix: Military Quests – User can receive hard and extreme difficulty missions without having met the requirements.
- Fix: Mineral Deposit – Rare – Sometimes unrelated materials are deposited into the quarries.
- Fix: Monastery – Doors attached to herb garden are preventing the monks from entering the building.
- Fix: Monks – Incorrect situational message when working
- Fix: Monks – Monk leaving winery work station doesn’t use path
- Fix: Monument – Changing the material set apply the last choice
- Fix: Monument and Building window seems to open far away from building and to expand out of screen.
- Fix: Need Cycle – Villager will stop going for needs under specific circumstances, resulting in multiple needs to be skipped even if plenty are available.
- Fix: Need unfilling on load game (housing and church)
- Fix: Pathfinding – Pathing through the wooden keep for soldiers issue, depending on the setup.
- Fix: Pathfinding – Rare situation where the builders cannot path to build decoration onto the bridge.
- Fix: Pause Game – Possible to have state in which the game does not resume from pause.
- Fix: Prevent soldiers and bailiff from lossing happiness while on mission/mandate
- Fix: Prospection Mandate – Ensure window has a maximum size and a scroll bar to allow for large number of deposit.
- Fix: Rustic Church – Door C does not allow to enter the church core if placed on a tower
- Fix: Rustic Church – Specific setup will prevent villagers to path properly into the core.
- Fix: Save and Load – Noticeable dip in happiness when reloading a save game.
- Fix: Sheep Statue – Impossible to build a sheep statue, the statue is never delivered to the building’s location.
- Fix: Some masterpiece game conditions are very CPU expensive when moving the whole building
- Fix: Statue – If a building containing a statue is cancelled during construction, the statues orders are not cancelled.
- Fix: Stone Quarry – Initial construction posts are floating when the construction begins.
- Fix: Various visual FX tweaks and fixes
- Fix: Warehouse / Granary – Possible to exceed maximum capacity.
- Fix: Warning pannel – Some workplaces aren’t showing the “full workplace” warning
- Fix: Wooden Keep – Height adjustment arrows are located too high
- Crash Fix: Crash when mod dependency is hidden on mod.io
- Crash Fix: Rare crash – Game crashes when deleting an Automated Fountain when there’s nothing else built in the game.
- Crash Fix: Rare crash – Game crashes when deleting part of the tavern bridge and reload the save.
- Crash Fix: Rare crash with no space for housing notification
– The Polymorph Games Team
Preview build: Alpha 1.6.22.1016 is live!
A preview build of the upcoming content patch is now available via the Steam & GOG beta options.
Devlog #14
For this Devlog we will be taking a closer look at what the team has been working on for the upcoming patch…
Devlog #13
Hey everyone and welcome to Devlog #13!
The Mineral & Craftsmanship update added some big content and systems to the game and the team have been working to fix any remaining bugs but also to polish the content that was added.
Consequently, we are now working on a content patch that will add some further improvements to the recent update. This patch will not only improve on some of the visuals but will also expand the masterpiece parts.
1.6 Content Patch
More specifically the 1.6 Content Patch will include:
- Visual improvements to the quarry depots
- Visual improvements to the mineral deposits including improved textures
- Improved mineral distribution
- Visual tweaks to Masterpieces
- New parts for the Gate Masterpiece
- New sounds for mining and workplaces
- New animations including workshop and building animations
We are sure you will be excited to hear that the 1.6 content patch will also include the following QoL improvements:
- Promotion window sorting
- Many more villager names and the option to rename villagers (planned)
With that, let’s take a closer look at what the team are currently working on…
Buildings & Masterpiece Polish
Claudine and Loup-Gabriel have been enhancing some of the building visuals, polishing current buildings with improved basements and grounded doors as well as working on the new Masterpieces.
The Gate Masterpiece, in particular, will see a new wall part as well as even more parts for you to build that perfect entrance to your city.
More Visual Polish
Enhanced textures are being worked on for the Mineral Deposits with Claudine currently working on a more refined Gold texture. You can expect to see more improvements to the deposits and quarry depots for the upcoming content patch.
Quality of Life Improvements
Christopher has been busy on a number of improvements including, updating the notification panel to remember your severity choice and refining the action button and warnings. These changes can be seen live right now in last week’s hotfix which also included Christoper’s work to allow multiple Masterpieces on the same monument.
On top of these changes, he is currently working on the villager promotion window to show more information in addition to some added control in the form of a sortable promotion list!
Building & Workshop Animations
Something we have been wanting to add for some time is more interaction between workers and the buildings, for example, the gold smelter pouring liquid gold from the cauldron when smelting.
Up until recently it hasn’t been possible… but now it is! With this newly created ability, Michaël has been working on new interactions between buildings and workers that includes moving parts on the buildings themselves.
Modding
In the past few weeks, we have been gathering feedback from the modding community to see what new features and content they would like to see unlocked. Armed with this feedback Max has been busy opening up new options for modders to create extra content.
For example, last week’s patches saw a new behavior tree for custom guard behavior. This will allow modders to create custom locators for guards so that they can patrol your villages.
Additionally, the recent patches have exposed a whole host of assets for modders to play with, such as building functions for the new quarries and workshops, masterpiece parts, villager jobs and much more. Full modding changelogs can all be found on the modding wiki pages.
Alongside this, Max has been working to add in some quality of life improvements and bug fixes for both modders and players alike. Modding logs have been augmented to catch errors in created mods and a useful QoL update has seen a new prompt when a player loads a save that might be missing mods. This will allow you to download the missing mods directly when starting a save game.
Both Max and Leo continue to work on performance optimizations improving the game for players and modders alike.
And Finally…
Vincent has been working on a top-secret project for a future update. Unfortunately, we can’t bring you more news on this just yet but it will bring some extra life to your villages.
To wrap up this Devlog we have some particularly exciting news that we know you will all be very happy to see. Dan has been working on the UI redesign whilst also improving the user experience wherever possible. The design phase is progressing very well and thanks to the UI tool that is being created by Ben, integration will start soon.
Once that big chunk of work is done, we will iterate both on the UX and the style of the menus, so expect changes along the way.
We are excited to reveal to you an exclusive sneak peek of the work so far:
You can see more samples of the work in progress UI in the recent article from Rock Paper Shotgun.
We would love to get your feedback, so don’t forget you can join us on our Discord server and let us know your thoughts.
– The whole Polymorph Games team
Minerals & Craftmanship 1.6 Update is now live!
Lords and Ladies, we are excited to present to you the Minerals & Craftmanship 1.6 Update, now live on Steam & GOG!
Savegame compatibility warning: 1.5 saves will be compatible but some of your buildings may be removed if they were placed on one of the new mineral deposit sites.
Also, note that your builders will now require a Builders’ Workshop.
It’s a big one, so let’s take a look at some highlights of what you can expect in the new update and let you get quickly into discovering the new minerals and crafting up some masterpieces!
WHAT’S NEW
Discover and Extract New Minerals!
New Mineral deposits can be found scattered throughout the maps, containing nice shiny new minerals, from gold-rich veins to glittering quartz nodes. These deposits can be prospected by your Bailiff in order to identify the ore they contain.
Inside the Mineral deposits your Bailiff will find both rare minerals as well as more common ones such as Iron. Once discovered the minerals can be extracted by clicking the deposit and building a quarry.
Extend your Buildings and Build Masterpieces
Buildings can now be extended with new parts. The first building extensions will take the form of crafting workstations that can be added to the Builders’ Workshop. These crafting workstations will allow your builders to craft various objects such as sculptures and stained glass.
Note that Builders’ Workshops are now mandatory for the building of any construction.
Masterpieces are sets of specific parts that can be added into a monument or be built as a standalone building. They are unique creations that will give your village unique perks once built. In total, there are 9 Masterpieces to discover and build.
Each masterpiece will unlock when specific conditions have been met. For example, this could be when your soldiers emerge victorious from a faraway mission.
New Productions
All of the new minerals can be used in production buildings as well as in the new Masterpieces. Further, new production buildings have been introduced to refine these minerals to be ready for use, such as the new Gold Smelter that turns Gold ore into Gold bars, the Glassworks that will work quartz into glass as well as a Jeweler who will make good use of any gold and gems you might find.
Bailiff Mandates
The Bailiff’s role has been expanded and can now undertake Mandates. These mandates will range from prospecting the new resource deposits to gaining influence with an Estate or researching blueprints. Yes, the scholar was unhappy and has now left!
Pathing Inside Buildings
Villagers can now path through monuments! This means that Monks can now get to those inner courtyards and soldiers can protect the pass. Pathing inside buildings will allow particular villagers to enter and exit through separate monument doors. Pathing will have conditions so that only those that should be allowed through can get through.
Visits
Word of your settlement is growing stronger. Not only will there be visits from envoys but there will be new visitors arriving at your village. Pilgrims might visit your shrine masterpiece and one of your monuments, that is perfect for taking in guests, might also receive a visitor under certain conditions.
Even More New Features
As you may know, we are working on a full UI overhaul. In the meantime, you will notice a new notification panel that will help to see warnings of potential issues in your village as well as a log of your missions and quests including currently active quests.
Bridges can now be raised in height as well as length. Yes m’lord, you can now raise your bridges up high, the sky is the limit!
The List Goes On…
The Minerals & Craftmanship update will also include:
- New animations
- New modding functions and capabilities
- New sounds
- New improved grass and cliff visuals
- 9 new achievements
- Plus many fixes and improvements
You can check out the full changelog below:
1.6 Changelog
Gameplay
New features
- New: Minerals sources that can be prospected and extracted
- New: Production chains related to minerals
- New: Masterpieces
- New: Productions chains
- New: Buildings can now have multiple placeable parts
- New: Builder now has his workshop
- New: Builder’s workshop can be extended with crafting extensions
- New: New unlockable builder’s workshop parts
- New crafting feature: craft sculpture and stained glass
- New: Bailiff can have mandates assigned like prospecting minerals and influencing estates
- New: New notification panel
- New: Pathing can now go through buildings that have multiple entrances
Improvements
- Add: Completed monument parts activate its function, (no need for an entire monument to be built before it becomes usable)
- Add: Gold has been separated in two new resources: Gold Coins and Gold Bars
- Add: Improved performance when editing a monument
- Add: Transporters will now carry materials to construction sites
- Add: New uniformized build flow between buildings and monuments
- Add: “getting started” section to help menu
- Add: Davenport now sells gems
- Add: Allow multiple transporters to carry materials to construction sites
- Add: localization
Art
Buildings
- New Builder’s workshop and crafting extensions: sculpture, stained glass, jewelry
- New mineral sources and quarries installations
- New Glass Smelter
- New Gold Smelter
- New customizable fountain, stained glass
Characters and animations
- New miner’s job outfit and animations
- New Glass Smelter & Gold Smelter animations
Environment
- New grass texture
- New cliff texture
Bug fixes
- fix: soldier/monks could get stuck on bridges
- fix: Wooden Keep Door B
- fix: tavern bridge bug
- fix: transporters and builders flow (pause & builder allocation)
- fix: missing tavern chimney texture
- fix: path finding issues when house upgrading
- fix: crash when the same game file is empty
- fix: crash when closing the game due to unsupported OpenGL version
- fix: rare crash with promotion
- fix: clear preview on bridge
- fix: freeze on clear preview
- fix: wooden bridge entrance PATH & slope locator position
- fix: showing bulldozer button on destructible building when under construction
- fix: mod list disappearing when scrollbar is added/removed
- fix: crash when destroying building too close to map edges
- fix: rare crash during tax collector collection
- fix: drop-down scroll bar behavior
- fix: wooden keep stair colliders
- fix: a crash in mod list menu
- fix: rare crash in workplace list window
- fix: building parts are not child of the core part anymore
- fix: crash with public lounge function activationfix: crash with
- notification window
Modding
- Add: mods hot-reload with Ctrl+Shift+R
- Add: creation of new asset and data types, and extending existing asset, component and data types
- Add: creation of behavior trees and custom behavior tree nodes
- Add: access to events
- Update: example 02 mod bridge
- Update: Remove Mover from Building Part Asset
- Update: Batch all Modding logs in a single file to avoid opening too many files
- Update: Foundation log file and mod log file are now readable during execution
- fix: asset retrieval by scripting ID was not allowed in some cases
- fix: VS Code snippets
- fix: restore some missing textures
The full modding changelog can be found on the modding wiki.
Let us know what you think or discuss the game with our awesome Foundation community on our official Discord server.
– The whole Polymorph Games team
Minerals & Craftmanship 1.6 Update: Release Date News
Exciting news!
The Minerals & Craftmanship Update will be released on Tuesday, July 14
The 1.6 preview build has now been thoroughly tested and the additional content is coming together. All this means we can today announce the release date for the upcoming Early Access 1.6 update.
Announcing a New Addition: The Masterpieces
In addition to the content previously announced we have also been working on a new feature coming in the 1.6 update… Masterpieces!
Masterpieces are unique sets of parts that will become available via inspirational events that will occur during gameplay. Once obtained the masterpiece parts set will be available to incorporate into any monument, transforming it into a unique monument.
Each Masterpiece can only be built once and will make full use of the new minerals and crafting stations now available.
There will be a total of 9 Masterpieces for you to discover and build in the 1.6 update release. All 9 Masterpieces will come with their own exclusive effects such as the work in progress, Shrine Masterpiece pictured below.
The Shrine will be unlocked via a miracle event and once built will become a place of pilgrimage for people far and wide and will come with the added effect of increasing immigration to your settlement.
New Achievements
To complement the new Masterpieces, each one will unlock a related Steam achievement. This will take the take number of achievements available in the game to 21.
New Animations
As well as all the new content coming in the new update we have also been working to increase the immersion. The 1.6 update will additionally come with new workstation animations to bring the new buildings and content to life.
Finally…
If you hadn’t already seen the previously news, here is a brief summary of what you can expect in the Minerals & Craftmanship Update, coming on July 14!
- New feature: Masterpieces
- New discoverable mineral resources
- Bailiff Mandates (Including prospecting for minerals)
- New buildings capabilities
- Artisan workshops
- New production chains
- Pathing inside buildings
- New modding features
– The Polymorph Games Team
Minerals and Craftmanship Preview Update 1.6.0.0522 is now Live!
Happy Friday everyone!
Just in time for the weekend, the Minerals and Craftmanship Preview Update 1.6.0.0522 is now Live!
We are looking to gather focused information and feedback on the new content. Therefore, for testing purposes, only the Valley map is available to play in the preview build. To get the full experience of the preview build we have also limited the save files on the preview build so you will need to start a new game that you will then be able to save and load as normal in the Preview.
Note: Custom maps are still available however these will not currently contain the resource nodes that are part of the update.
Mods will also require updating by the mod creators and modding community and will not be immediately playable.
Let us know what you think…
We hope you enjoy the Preview and we would love to hear what you think.
If you would like to send in your feedback you can do so via this feedback form.
You are, of course, also welcome to discuss the game and report bugs as usual on the Steam discussions forums or join us on our Discord server.
Thank you in advance and we look forward to hearing from you and reading your feedback!
Changelog
We have a bunch of new features and content included in this preview build of the upcoming update. You can find a changelog below and more detailed information on some of the new content can be found in our previous announcement here.
Gameplay
New features
- New minerals sources that can be prospected and extracted
- New production chains related to minerals
- Buildings can now have multiple placeable parts
- Builder now has his workshop
- Builder’s workshop can be extended with crafting extensions
- New unlockable builder’s workshop parts
- New crafting feature: craft sculpture, stainedglass and jewels (not all available yet)
- Bailiff can have mandates assigned like prospecting minerals and influencing estates
- New notification panel
- Pathing can now go through buildings that have multiple entrances
- New customizable fountain
Improvements
- Parts that are built instantaneously activate its function, thus, no need for an entire monument to be built before it becomes usable
- Church capacity is now considering multiple cores
- Gold has been separated in two new resources: Gold Coins and Gold Bars
- Improved performance when editing a monument
- Transporters will now carry materials to construction sites
- New uniformized build flow between buildings and monuments
Art
Buildings
- Builder’s workshop and artisan extensions: sculpture, stainedglass, jewelry (not all available yet)
- New mineral sources and quarries installations
- New Glass Smelter
- New Gold Smelter
- New customizable fountain, stainedglass
Characters and animations
- New miner’s job outfit and animations
- New Glass Smelter & Gold Smelter animations
Environment
- New grass texture
- New cliff texture
Modding
- Add mods hot-reload with Ctrl+Shift+R
- Add creation of new asset and data types, and extending existing asset, component and data types
- Add creation of behavior trees and custom behavior tree nodes
- Add access to events
- More details can be found on the wiki
Preview build access instructions (Steam)
If you would like to take a look at the Minerals and Craftmanship Preview build you can switch over to it via the Steam Betas in your Foundation properties.
- Choose Foundation (Steam Library)
- Click Manage (Cog)
- Click Properties
- Click Betas (tab)
- In the “Select the beta” dropdown choose Preview
(If you don’t see the preview option restart Steam)
Preview build access instructions (GOG)
If you want to take a look at the Minerals and Craftmanship Preview build you can switch over to it via the GOG Betas in your Foundation configuration details.
- Choose Foundation (GOG library)
- Click settings
- Click Manage installation
- Click Configure
- In the “Beta channels” dropdown choose Preview
Update and Preview build News
Hey Everyone!
We are excited to announce that we will soon be bringing you a new update, that we have named, the Minerals and Craftmanship Update!
The update is nearly ready and the full release will come in a few weeks but in the meantime, those of you eager to take an early look will be able to test some of the new features, in an upcoming Preview build!
More news on the preview build and how to gain access will be coming in the next few days.
Please note: Though custom maps are still available, we are looking to gather focused information and feedback on the new content. Therefore, for testing purposes, the preview build is focused on the Valley map.
If you would like to help out and share your feedback with us, then firstly, thank you! All feedback is very important and useful to us and in the development of the game.
Please let us know what you think of the preview build via this feedback form.
Minerals and Craftmanship Update:
preview build 1.6.0
We are bringing a multitude of changes and improvements in this update and you can check out some of the highlights that will be playable in the Preview Build, below.
Discoverable resources
One of the biggest and most exciting new features coming with the update are discoverable resources that will need to be prospected to know what kind of mineral they contain. Once prospected, you will be able to build a quarry over the mineral source to extract it. Some of these resources will be common and found in multiple nodes however some will contain more rare minerals.
New buildings capabilities
Prior to this update, there were two building types: single buildings and monuments. In this update, they now all have the same capabilities. This means a single building could have parts added to extend its functionalities. The first single building to exploit this new feature is a new one: The Builder’s Workshop.
At last, builders now have their own workplace! This building will be extendable to add new artisan workshops with crafting capabilities, like the scultpure or stainedglass workshop.
Artisan workshops
Parts that need more detailed, artistic work, like stained glass and sculptures will need to be first crafted in artisan workshops from the extended Builder’s Workshop. These artisan workshops will take advantage of the new resources that will be available to you in the discoverable resource nodes and the workshops themselves will allow you to create all new unique parts and Masterpieces for your village.
Masterpieces
Masterpieces are outstanding pieces of art that need to be crafted by artisans and that will provide a lot of splendor. More details on this soon…
New production chains
The workshops are going to require processed materials that will form part of new production chains. One such discoverable resource you will be able to find is gold ore which will require smelting into gold bars via a Goldsmelter before being used in your artisan workshop
An improved role for the Bailiff: The Bailiff Mandates
The bailiff will be introduced earlier into the game than previously and, for a cost, will be able to accomplish mandates for his lord. Among other things, he will be able to prospect for minerals and study blueprints.
Path inside buildings
One feature we have wanted to push for a while is the capabilities for villagers to use doors that communicate with one another. As such, villagers are now able to path through buildings by entering a door and going out from another. For example, Monks will be able to path through enclosed Cloisters, or villagers will be able to access enclosed courtyards via an inner courtyard entrance/exit but only through buildings that they are allowed to based on certain rules.
Multiple gameplay and feedback improvements
The Minerals and Craftmanship Update is a good time to consolidate on the work so far in the game and as such you will find many Quality of Life improvements some of which you will be able to see in the preview build.
There is now a new notification panel that will make it easier to track quests and keep an eye on issues in your village.
As noted above there are new building capabilities. To keep things consistent, all buildings will be placed and built in similar building workflow fashion to monuments. i.e. Placing a building will require that you also choose to start construction. You can still use shift + click to place multiple buildings which will bypass the requirement to click “start construction”.
We have also introduced another new change to the way you create monuments. You will first need to place a building marker before placing any parts to a monument. This building marker can then be moved and in doing so will allow you to move your whole blueprint before final placement and construction.
Grass has seen improvements in this update with a greater variety to shades and depth giving a more realistic look to grasslands.
Other improvements include cleaning up placeholder text, {img1} as well as new sounds and new animations.
New modding features
The new update will bring some huge features for the modding community which will allow modders much more freedom to create new assets, behaviours and also make changes and extend vanilla components and functions.
The preview build will include the ability to create custom behaviour trees and nodes. This will enable modders to use both our existing nodes as well as define their own nodes when creating new behaviours for villagers.
Custom assets, as well as custom structures, will now be available for use by modders. This means that modders will no longer be confined to using our asset types and can now define their own. Complex data related to these assets and components can then be stored in custom structures.
All of these additions and changes will allow much more flexibility for modding. As an added bonus we will also be opening up our own core components to allow some engine and game structures to be extended. This will allow, for example, new bridge building functions or workplace building functions to be assigned to core components.
Can you imagine the potential horrors, such as an “Antenna farm” mod?!
You will be able to see all the new modding changes in the release notes and changelog here, on release of the preview build.
More to come
Although the preview build is already jam-packed full of new content and improvements we will continue to add more as we work toward the full update release.
In the meantime, stay tuned for more information on the Preview build release coming soon.
-The Polymorph Games Team
Devlog #12
Hey everyone, welcome to Devlog #12!
With the Winter update and bonus Anniversary update now out and running smoothly, you are probably wondering what is next for development. The next update will be a good chance for us to consolidate on the work we have already undertaken and with this in mind we are looking at many Quality of Life improvements and minor bug fixes. There will be more content to come, of course, and we will be bringing more news on the next update in the coming weeks.
So, on to the devlog! Let’s find out what the team has been working on for the last few weeks.
Update planning
Phil, our Creative Director, (and CEO) has been busy planning and designing the content for the next update as well as refactoring the event system, a long due task, to make it more user-friendly. He has also been working on ‘some boring admin stuff’.
Statues and new production lines
Loup-Gabriel has been working on new production lines, that center around quarries and new extractable resources. Those quarries will be a major part of the next content update. Stay tuned for more details soon!
You may have noticed the new statues in the recent anniversary update, these statues not only add aesthetics to your villages but also increase the desirability of an area. More statues are still to come and Loup-Gabriel has been at work on a whole selection of new statues covering the 3 different estates.
QoL improvements
As mentioned above, we are looking at QoL improvements and Christopher has already made great progress on improving and fixing many of the in-game notifications.
These improvements will, for example, allow the player to easily focus on and cycle through villagers that are lacking housing or cycle through workplaces that have no workable zone, more easily identifying workplaces that require the player’s attention.
The immigration notification has also been adjusted to pop-up when new villagers reach the village centre rather than when entering the map. The Global Happiness tooltip has also been improved to show every factor affecting happiness.
Chris has also been working on expanding the Bailiff’s functionality to give it more depth. This is still very much at concept stage and there will be more news on this in a future communication.
Animations
We are always looking to improve on the (not so) little details that bring your villages/cities to life. A big part of this immersion comes from the animations and Michaël has been busy on new animations for workplaces and more finer details.
The sawmill will see new hewing and saw animations. The Charcoal hut now has workplace animations for both shoveling and process monitoring with a 3rd animation in the works.
Monks will now take care of their bees and hives in the Apiaries.
He has also been working on those finer details such as animated cloaks for the envoys as well as animations for an upcoming feature which we have already hinted at in the Audinity Q&A feature recently.
Villager life cycle
Those of you that have checked out our updated Roadmap may have spotted the entry for Villager Lifecycle and Aging. Though still in its infancy (pun intended), Vincent has been working on both the older generation of villagers and has now moved on to the younger generation. With new facial aging and hairstyles, your villagers will become more diverse and varied. As mentioned this feature is still in the early stages of development and will be for a later update.
New UI
Work is continuing on a large project that will bring a fresh new look to Foundation. The new UI is coming along well and Ben has been working on improvements to the Hurricane engine to facilitate the creation of the new UI design, as well as allowing for quick styling changes and future improvements.
Claudine has also been working on preparing the new UI, testing new concepts, color variants and cleaning visual elements as well as other work on improving in-game textures and other concept art and feedback on new assets.
Modding improvements
Modders will be happy to hear that more modding improvements are coming. Maxime has been working almost exclusively on exposing more features and improving modding capabilities.
We have previously introduced the ability for modders to create custom components and now we are looking to expand upon this by allowing modders to create more custom features such as custom workplaces. In order to do this, Max has been working on creating custom modding classes as well as exposing more classes and features for modders.
Hurricane engine improvements
And finally our technical director, Léo, has been working under the hood, improving the engine. Improving performance as well as adding to the aesthetics of the game. Improvements to grass are underway and Léo has been experimenting to improve the near/far blending and handling of more grass diversity for an improved landscape.
– The Polymorph Games Team
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