Ancient Savo private beta available for UrW players

[Erkka]

Hello! As many of you might already know, here at Enormous Elk we have a small side-project in the works. It is a family-scale survival game, with point-and-click gameplay, designed to be mod-friendly. No combat, the cold and hunger and accidents being your main enemies. As your kids grow adult, they can marry and you can choose to switch playing as one of your kids, having a fresh start building a new home in the wilderness.

At the moment of writing this the game is at private beta stage, the beta version being available for UnReal World players. You can find the game at itch.io

There is a Ancient Savo discord, here is the invitation link: https://discord.gg/6Crvp6F5dj.
Discord is where I post regular development news etc. And now there is also this forum subsection, you can post bug reports, suggestions, questions and any feedback here.

[Erkka]

TL;DR : Ancient Savo private beta version 9 is published today!

After the previous release it has just been slow progress, as I spent several months reworking the inner logic of the game. Some of the code related to handling tasks and map tiles needed to be partially re-written so that they can handle all the rest of the planned features. And that unleashed a bunch of unexpected bugs, so I had to spend more time just fixing existing features. Well, but finally it seems we have all the core aspects implemented.

Today's beta version 9 is supposed to be the last private beta - after this the main focus will be on improving the UI, implementing some missing graphics, and producing a trailer video. All such stuff which are needed before a public beta release. Yes, the next version is still going to be beta, yet functional enough to be available for the wide open audience. Let's see how it goes! And before the public release I'd be very happy to get all kinds of feedback - what you find confusing, or if you have an opinion on what definitely needs to be fixed, or a suggestion how some aspects of the UI could work better. Or just plain harsh criticism. All feedback is welcome - either by e-mail, or in discord, or here in this forum sub-section.

Huh, oh, um - yes, so, on top of my head; what do we already have? Seasons changing and abandoned fields regrowing, first bushes, then young trees and eventually fully-grown woods. Ability to marry and to have children, children growing up and getting married. Ability to switch playing as one of the adult children, starting a new homestead in a new place. Rearing sheep, shearing wool and crafting clothes. A very flexible modding system based on xml-files.

What needs to be added: Different animals, more tools and crafting recipes, more accidents and ailments.

And what needs to be improved: UI, graphics and sounds.

[Erkka]

This project is pretty much alive and progressing. Today's private beta version is 12, at the moment available only for you - the UnReal World players.

Lately the development has been mostly about improving the UI, and fixing fatal bugs found by the test players. Ah, and also implementing many of the suggestions by the test crew. Before going to public beta I'd still like to add ways to interact with your clan other families (once some of your kids get adult and you send them to start new homesteads). At the moment it is so that when they fly out of the nest they are on their own (or, optionally, you continue playing as the young family). I'd like there to be an option to visit and to exchange with your other families - and that will require some AI to determine what the other families have been up to while you have been busy playing our main family - which areas of forest they have turned to fields, have they built new buildings, what new tools they have crafted etc. Hard to say, at least two or three weeks of coding, depending on how much I'm stuck at my main work earning money.

Well, yeah - but we are approaching the first public launch, so if you wish to join the test crew, I'd guess this is a good time to do it. We have versions for Windows and Mac, and then a generic version which should run on any desktop machine which has Java 8 or higher installed.

-Erkka