Legend of Queen Opala: Origin - Week 39 / 2021

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Guess what, it's been a whole week since last Tuesday! MADNESS!!!

This probably won't be a too entertaining update as most of this past week was spent on prepping up the latest beta for release over the weekend...and released it was!
I worried expeditions would've had a bunch of bugs I missed, although so far it seems like the only accounted issue is with the countdown timer being delayed when moving between maps.
It'll be fixed for the next beta so it won't be an issue, along with some additional balancing.

Other than that, I've been working on adjusting menus with character interractions.
Renaming some things and also including a statistics list so you can check how many times you've won against each individual person in Strippin' o' Die, along with seeing how often you've snu-snu'ed them in the tent or your private chambers.

So that'll have to be all for now, I'll see you guys again next week!

Legend of Queen Opala: Origin - Week 38 / 2021

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I have good news and some more good news, but I'll start with the good news!

I believe the expedition mechanic has reached a point where I finally got everything figured out.
And while it doesn't look or seem that impressive at first glance, I'm pretty sure it's the most complex mechanic I've done so far with all the different calculations running in the background.
One of the things that was holding it back was deciding how to deal with the different scouting spots you can send your troops to gather material from, something I wasn't sure how to balance or restrict until I found the best solution was to make it an infinite resource where each location has its own set of various material that is randomly rolled each time.
This way I can also re-shuffle the loot pool later or add in new rewards without having to take into consideration if the place has already been explored before or not.

I also solved how to let the players manually check exactly how many minutes are left before an expedition is over to let you send out the troops out again, along with claiming any reward.
So it looks like the next beta will be out this upcoming weekend, y'all!

Thus, I'm out for today and back again next week!

Legend of Queen Opala: Origin - Week 37 / 2021

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Seven days...and we're still all here!

Most of this week has slowly but steadily been spent on the expedition mechanic.
I've also updated some CG Scenes with the previously missing International Edition version, along with adding a clocktower to Castle Warrengard where Paellicia will be moved to.

I'm certain there was more, although I can't for the life of me remember what at this moment.
So unfortunately that means it's going to be a short Tuesday update this time. Dx
However, the expedition mechanic should hopefully be done by next week!

I'll be back again next Tuesday as always!

Legend of Queen Opala: Origin - Week 36 / 2021

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Better take a look at that calendar, it's freakin' Tuesday!

It took a couple of scrapped cutscenes in multiple locations to get the tone right, but I'm finally satisfied and thus Instructor Stella has now been formally introduced in the game!
She and Behelda the Blacksmith becomes available for recruitment at the same time and will both be mentioned by Black Dame once you've escaped Blackgard Stronghold, the difference is Behelda will already be in Castle Warrengard setting up shop while Stella is someone you need to personally meet up with first at Whitehaven.
Recruiting a person will list what unlocks, so that has also been retroactively added to Behelda.
(Although, she is pretty self-explanatory for those who already have her)

I also did some minor adjustments, such as letting the Castle Warrengard workers give you a bit more specified description on what they'll do and what you'll unlock, before you commit.
My next step will be focusing on getting the expedition mechanic done within this month, and once I do, I'll immediately release another beta.

Have a good one, and see you in the next update!

Legend of Queen Opala: Origin - Week 35 / 2021

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Surprise, it's Tuesday again!

The beta was released over last weekend as scheduled, but sadly I had to scale back and remove the main feature that would've been the expedition mechanic due to some last-minute changes.
This will most likely mean yet another beta will be out next month, with that added back in.
The reason I had to make it inaccessable by normal means is that some things would've been hard to implement later if the content has already been interracted with, so I had to make that call.
But again, it'll be included within a September window that'll also fix some Naz'Raala related bugs.

Other than that, this week hasn't been spent on much else than prepping for that beta and then fixing some issues that was reported after release, which makes for a less than exciting update.

Although, there is always a next week!

Legend of Queen Opala: Origin - Week 34 / 2021

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Heck yeah, you better believe it's Tuesday!

With the end of the month looming over the horizon, this week has mostly been spent on tweaking things for the upcoming beta that'll most likely be hitting over the weekend.
Currently the Quick-Menu has been applied to every corner of Castle Warrengard, but I'm uncertain if I should expand it to the rest of the game just yet or keep it to the citadel for this beta in order to ensure I get some feedback first with less hassle to make any potential changes.
I mentioned before that applying this would allow for sprinting indoors, and on the flip-side, it'd also let you access all the menus (Art Gallery, Encyclopedia etc.) at outdoor locations.
Although, enemies won't politely wait for you to finish polishing ye ol' broomstick, so expect to be ambushed the moment you exit the menus if you're in a hostile area. 

And while Instructor Stella can't be recruited properly, she'll still be available anyway so players can try out the new party training and expedition mechanics, since she will be required for those.
Naz'Raala as a party member and Lady Farah added to the tent mechanic will also be in it!

That'll be all for today, though! See you again next week!

 

Legend of Queen Opala: Origin - Week 33 / 2021

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It's that faithful day of the week again!

After trying a few different versions, I decided the best layout for the Quick-Menu was to make it simple and straightforward to fit the namesake and functionality. (Preview down below!)
I think this is also the best possible solution to show expedition progress as it's just one button press away, with the extra pop-up only displayed in the Quick-Menu while an expedition is active.
The only downside I could find is that the button press is considered a priority command by the game, so if you were to press it during a dialogue, interraction, etc, it would be queued up to instantly trigger once the previous event finished.

Under normal circumstances, this shouldn't be a problem, but it could have some negative effects if you tried triggering the Quick-Menu during cutscenes since they are more complex, so the solution to that would simply be to manually disable priority commands during cutscenes.
While easy to do, it'll be a bit time consuming since I have to edit every cutscene in the game.

Even if I had scrapped the Quick-Menu idea, I'd still have to edit the cutscenes, because toggling sprinting ON/OFF is another priority command which has to be corrected as well.
Doing that will also give me a good excuse to include the sprinting option to all indoor locations.
I intend to assign the Quick-Menu to the A button, and have sprinting moved to Z/Shift instead.
I'm not a PC gamer, but I think Shift for sprinting is better and somewhat common?

Anyhoo, that's a lot of talking for barely any substance!