This week we continue our march toward the preview release in December. As usual, our time is divided between slow but steady progress on gameplay and on the boring-but-essential features that we need to actually ship a game: clear modding APIs, installers, and performance tuning.
One such under-the-covers enhancement was to change the way we treat professions like the Worker and Carpenter. There’s a lot that goes into a character’s profession: how they appear on the screen, what kinds of things they’re allowed to do in the game, how they react to their environment, etc. A Worker or Carpenter might run from an invading orc, but a Footman or Archer would engage to defend the town.
Our original system allowed modders to manipulate all these aspects independently. It was flexible, but difficult to use. We’ve re-factored things around the notion of “equipment.” Like in RPGs, all characters have a set of equipment that they wear. In Stonehearth, you will be able to associate AI scripts with a piece of equipment. So the scripts for chopping trees, hauling, and other workman-like tasks are associated with the “Worker’s outfit” equipment piece. The AIs for crafting are associated with the “Carpenter’s outfit.” When a citizen takes off one outfit and puts on another, the AIs are swapped out as well.
Of course, that begs the question: what does a person look like with no outfit on?
Two Live streams this week!
I’ll be streaming both today and this Thursday, at 4:00 U.S. Pacific time on both days. I’ll be taking a first nibble at the eating/drinking systems in the game, mostly modelling and animating. As always, you can tune in at http://twitch.tv/radiantentertainment