UnReal World

UnReal World is a unique low-fantasy roguelike game set in the far north during the late Iron-Age.
The world of the game is highly realistic, rich with historical atmosphere and
emphasized on survival in the harsh ancient wilderness.


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Hall of Fame
...into the far north we shall take you --
-- as far as we can by the means of computer role playing...
UnReal World development

The very first version of UnReal World was released in 1992. The game was a lot different back then, but still featured many ideas and style of computer role-playing we're working on now. Over the past years we've seen dozens and dozens of UrW releases, and ever since 1992 the game has been constinuosly maintained and developed. And still there is no end in sight to perfecting the game and working with the next generations of this "fenno-ugrian fantasy". You may want to take a look at Dev.history since 1992.


Below you can find a list of improvements and development goals for the future releases and years to come. The list rarely features what has been done already, but aims foremostly for what there will be in the future.

Development list

Last updated: Feb-7-2024 (and constantly under construction)

These codes are used to indicate the work in process:
  • future goal
  • only the entries being actually coded at the moment are highlighted - any of the future goals can end up on this list without warning.
  • done and already featured (in current version 3.82)
  • these are fairly recent ones, much of what was done long-time ago is left unlisted



Character's Life

  • Quests (having huge impact on the whole gameplay and game world)
  • Making friends and foes among NPCs (as a result of quests)
  • Ability to woo NPCs and get married
  • Ability to have children
  • Ability continue playing as one of your own offsprings after you've perished
  • Being able to inherit some property (house, tools etc.) and family skills of your late character when playing as one of your own offsprings
  • Persistent archive of ancestors (deceased characters)
    • List and data of deceased characters staying between version updates
  • Utilizing the data of the deceased
    • NPCs telling legends about your late characters
    • Being able to find settlements and items of your late characters
  • Dreams and premonitions

World and terrain

  • Map of known areas (F6) overhaul
    • Larger map viewport
    • Set custom markers
  • More tree species
  • Trees of all age and size; saplings, young trees, fully grown trees
  • Leaf trees growing and losing leaves according to the season
  • Trees growing over time (although almost unnoticeably slowly)
  • More beautiful and realistic modeling of ice:
    • Gradual freezing of the lakes
    • Varying thickness of ice
    • A thin ice being able to break under load
  • More beautiful and realistic modeling of snow and rain:
    • Varying forms of snow; crust
    • Gradual snowfall and hourly accumulation of snow cover
    • Graphical presentation of snowfall
    • The amount and the form of snow having more impact on physical activities the character, NPCs and animals can do
    • Ability (and sometimes a need) to remove snow (by shoveling)
    • Tracks getting covered and decayed by snowfall and rain
  • Moon, its' phases, and the moonlight effect
  • Thunder and lightning
  • Storms; trees felling down, crops getting hurt etc.
  • Growing plants reacting to the weather and flourishing accordingly

Health, combat and injuries

  • Initiative/tactics rules for long reach weapons
  • Archery; somewhat skill dependant shooting rate
  • Advanced shield usage to protect from missile attacks
  • Shield related NPC AI
  • Blunt and broadhead arrows
  • Eye injuries may cause you to lose sight
  • Scars; being generated, and displayed in wounds screen
  • Infections
  • Improving importance of taking a sauna bath
    • make and use vasta
    • more detailed heating up of sauna
    • sauna related audio samples
    • need to wash up occasionally
  • New types of injuries/ailments; abrasions, twisted knees, sprained ankles, muscle pain etc.

Movement and transport

  • Challenge to moving in rapids and rivers:
    • boating upriver to be more fatiguing and difficult
    • rapids being risky and dangerous to boat in and swim
    • capsizing watercrafts
  • Watercraft type and implement to move it matters to how fatiguing it is
  • Travois
  • Winter transport:
    • pulkka - a small toboggan/sled (being pulled by a skier or a draught animal)
    • Sleigh (being pulled by a horse)
  • Summer transport:
    • Barrows
    • Cart (pulled by a horse)
    • Rowing boat
    • Ability to float timber

NPCs

The ultimate goal of non-player character behaviour is to have them live a meaningful daily life in rich and interesting way, being able to do pretty much all the same things as the player character can do in the game world. A list of some short-term goals for NPCs would be:
  • little girls as new NPC type
  • old women as new NPC type
  • New approach to breaches in villages
    • Banishing; NPCs will spare your life, but will forcefully remove you from their village
    • Handling thievery; NPCs will spare your life, but will reclaim stolen goods by force
  • Village inventory and restocking overhaul
    • Restocking is more accurately based on population and culture.
    • Basic toos, weapons, utensils can be found in almost any settlement.
    • Villages have better culturally dependent food supplies.
    • Furs - a completely new type of village property
  • NPCs having seasonal rituals, feasts and life-cycle rites
    • Birth
    • Marriage
    • Death and burial
    • Hunting rituals
    • Spring and summertime feasts
    • The end of crop year
    • etc. (there is a special occasion for nearly every month)
  • dog companions for wandering NPCs
  • NPCs doing the ordinary work in a meaningful fashion;
    • sowing, harvesting and stocking crops
    • building, crafting, gathering berries and mushrooms etc.
    • active hunting mechanics for NPCs in the wild
  • More options to command your party members
    • skin and butcher carcasses
    • hunt/attack
    • do timbercraft
      • make boards
      • make logs
    • do fishing
    • do building
    • craft essential items
    • cook food (ie. roast meat and fish)
  • Njerpez warriors wandering also in small groups
  • Party members spontaneously help you with certain tasks thus shortening the working time
  • Possibility to help NPCs in their daily communal work (in quests)
  • Possibility to gain reputation among NPCs based on your actions
  • Spreading of news; word of your good or bad deeds gets around and news spread across the villages
  • Moody NPC speech; reputation and familiarity affects how NPCs talk to you.

Trading & Villages

  • trading cap for meat and fish
  • More resources to villages:
    • birch-bark
    • yarn
    • all the farm products from the field are stocked
    • seeds, peas, beans, turnips etc.
    • berries
    • building materials; boards, logs, wooden stakes etc.
    • common tools and equipment; ropes, ordinary clothes, wooden containers etc.
  • Communal trading system
    • Pick items freely around the village and pay your debt at will
    • Removal of "shop-based" trading - you can trade for village goods with any adult
  • village dogs to roam freely at the village area
  • watchdog behaviour for village dogs
  • Items/materials having different value for different cultures; based on the item/material availability and commonness at certain cultural region
  • NPCs valuing items individually; based on their personal inventory and possessions
  • Ability to ask a craftsman to make you a certain item; to be paid and obtained after it's ready
  • Seasonal markets being arranged by villagers; foreign traders and peddlers coming to sell various goods

Skills

  • Improving skills by learning from NPCs (as a quest reward)
  • Special consequences from failed attempts to use certain skills; e.g. hitting your knee with an axe when felling a tree etc.
  • netmaking skill
  • spearfishing improvements
  • lippo fishing at rapids
  • Clothmaking/tailory skill
  • Textilecraft skill
    • Extract fibres, spin yarn

Items and crafting

  • lippo - a kind of dip net for fishing at rapids and shallow waters
  • vasta - a kind of broom for sauna bath
  • withes (natural tying equipment) made from saplings
  • Birch-bark as raw material, and craftable birch-bark items
  • Length property for appropriate items eg. ropes and cords
  • Fibre processing for yarn
  • Possibility to dry mushrooms and berries
  • more beverages: beer, mead.
  • Ember-roasting (turnips)
  • Moisture content for items; wet firewood and clothes to dry after rain
  • Weapons used in the battle can get damaged and break.
  • Footwear gradually wear out from walking.
  • Bowstring wearing out and need to be repaired once in a while
  • Hooks occasionally snapping off from fishing rods and thus needing maintenance
  • Crafting wooden and bone hooks, and fishing rods
  • Ability to sharpen edged weapons and tools
  • Item quality assessment based on not only crafting success but mastery level as well; novice craftsmen rarely produce top quality items and highly skilled craftsmen can trust their skills won't fail all too easily
  • Item quality having more impact on its properties;
    • high quality items are more durable, low quality ones wear out faster
    • armour and cloth quality affects to their protective values
      eg. fine fur clothes provide more warmth
  • Net craftable by player character
  • Pausable crafting, thus making the selection of your working hours and periods more free
    • Featuring pausable crafting for making nets
  • Raw material quality having more impact on the finished item
    • Raw material quality affects to quality of finished item
    • Tool usefulness affects to quality of crafted item - the more unhandy the tool, the less perfect the resulting item
  • Tool quality having more impact on the finished item - can't craft the finest items with poor quality tools.
  • Musical instruments
  • Bone and antlers as raw materials

Buildings and constructions

  • gradual warming up and cooling down of fireplaces and sauna stoves
  • The quality and type of the timber used having more impact on the finished building/construction
  • Poorly constructed buildings being less warm, having leaking roofs etc.
  • Buildings and constructions deteriorating over long period of time
  • continue building after cancelling the process; thus making the selection of your working hours and periods completely free
  • Pausable digging and filling up pits
  • Post spruce ('asentokuusi) - a simple shelter by felling a single spruce tree

Forging

  • Collecting, preparation and smelting of iron ore to be featured as it was practiced
  • Introduction of blacksmith skills for the player character
  • Blacksmith NPCs

Carcasses

  • Pausable carcass cutting and skinning
  • Carcasses can be moved and picked up like any items
  • Carcasses rot, decay and eventually disappear - scavengers can utilize rotting carcasses, but humans may obtain usable meat and hide only from fresh carcasses.
  • Carcasses can be burnt - kind of "burial" for your dead pets and companions
  • Bones and antlers from carcasses

Animals

  • Balance overhaul of animal populations
  • Natural habitat playing a greater role in appearance of animals
  • Animals can feed on sprouts (causing harm to crops)
  • Cubs and young (wild) animals
  • Animal dens and nests
    • ant nests
  • Animals droppings to be found in the wild
  • Wild animals reacting to each others: predator-prey relationships
  • Predators actively search, hunt, kill and eat their prey - possibly also from your livestock
  • Species specific diets and related AI for all the animals
  • Birds laying eggs
  • Feathers (naturally dropped and from skinned birds)
  • Mating seasons for all the animals; animals gathering up at their mating territories, being more aggressive and more courageous
  • Spawning periods for the fish, and taking advantage of these in fishing
  • Seals
  • More birds: goshawk, goldeneye, willow grouse, hazel grouse, eagle owl etc.

Livestock and domestic animals

  • Dogs alert their owners if they spot intruders/predators
  • Commanding dogs - attack, come, stay
  • Sheep shearing
  • Horses:
    • Ability to ride a horse
    • Ability to use horses in farming, forest work and for hauling freight
  • color variety for domestic animals
  • Ability (and need) to feed animals, including grazing
    • Feeding dogs
  • Tie animals to trees
  • Dogs notify their master about a kill
  • Animal husbandry
  • Breeding
  • Chickens

Modding

Introducing large scale modability requires lots of work, but nevertheless the goals listed below will be completed step by step. For the already completed and released sections the modding options are going to be perfected even further.
  • Moddable starting skill levels and base attributes
  • Moddable items (+ add completely new ones)
  • Moddable plants (+ add completely new ones)
  • Moddable cookery recipes (+ add completely new ones)
  • Moddable crafting
  • Moddable building
  • Moddable in-game messages
    • Combat messages
    • Around 15% of other messages
  • Moddable sounds (+ add completely new ones)
  • Easier modding of tile graphics; separate graphic file for each item

etc. etc. etc. (minor additions are left unlisted)