Dev update November 2023

If you have been following this project in the past year you might know that once again I had to put it on hold... but once again I came back to the active development and the good news is that for a while I'll keep working (almost) full time on it!

Anyway, enough said about that, let's focus on what I did during the month of November 2023.

Long life to the Map Editor!

This month I focused mostly on the development of the map editor and I managed to get a first working version that can be used to create, edit, load and save a map.
Everything is still a bit rough and it will require many little improvements before it can be used by others, but it's usable enough for my development needs, so I am happy with what I achieved so far.

Now let me show you all the current features in detail.

A core feature of every editor is placing objects on a map. This can be done here after selecting the wanted object from a dedicated panel:

Every time you add an object to a map the cells underneath and around it are automatically updated to reflect the proper type.

Objects that have multiple variants, like mountains or trees, are also procedurally randomized to add more variety to the scene.

It is also possible to edit every single object when selecting it:

This allows to fine-tune the elements on a map in case you're not happy with the current randomization.

Something less visual, but very important is the capacity to load and save map files:

Right now the editor is operating on a single, hardcoded file, but as I said I'll be the only one using it for a while, so it's not a big issue.

All this combined will allow me to create maps in the editor and to use them in game.
Also from now on it will be fairly easy to add new features as all the basics are already covered.

Someone might argue that it would have been better to spend more time on the game as it's not finished yet, but the map editor had to be done anyway and it's always been extremely frustrating to postpone other changes because I didn't want to waste hours updating the existing maps manually with a text editor... so here it is!

Another important reason for working on the editor is that to get everything done I was forced to sort out some tech debt the project has been carrying on for a long time, that's where 3 weeks of work went into. Even if it's not been fun, it was very needed and it will help any further development.

Minor updates

- New map file format to support all the changes and new features
- New structure dialog shows structures grouped by category
- Units move along the conquest path while conquering cells (as they used to do) and along the planned design path while building walls
- A few fixes and improvements in SGL, the game library which is the tech core of Virtueror
- Updated code of the open source repository on GitHub to the latest changes.

The latest commit that made it into this update is number 1545.
From now on I will report the new number on every update to keep track of much (coding) work I manage to do in a single month.
Also keep in mind that this number is the sum of the commits of Virtueror and SGL (the game library I created for it), as they are pretty tightly coupled at the moment and there's no reason to consider them separately.

What's next

For next month I will probably focus on gameplay, game UI and AI development, something that's been neglected for too long.

I think an achievable and very useful goal is to implement some basic game end, that will allow to complete a map when playing to conquer it.
Other things will be decided in the next few weeks.

Hopefully I'll be able to release a new alpha build at the end of December and if all goes well you can think about it like a late Christmas present.

Do you think I'll manage to put enough work for a new release in the next 31 days?
The only way to find out is to follow the development and the best way to do it is joining the official Discord server of Virtueror.

Support this game, add and follow!

If you enjoyed this update and if you want to support Virtueror I would really appreciate if you could spread the word, but also add it to your collections and follow me on itchio to stay up to date with all the upcoming news and updates.

You can also wishlist and follow on Steam, if you use that gaming platform too.