Hello everyone! Now that the holidays are over and everything is probably back into their normal rhythm, I wanted to give a new update for the new year. If you’re just looking for the roadmap, skip ahead a bit!
First, let me say that I’m sorry that the updates have been going slowly. That’s entirely my fault and it comes down to not making the progress that I was originally hoping to make. When I first started implementing things, I was adding them rapidly There wasn’t much in the game yet, so there wasn’t really anything that could break if created or changed other things. But now that the codebase is getting larger, I have to check a lot more to ensure that there are no unintended side effects when adding new things to the game. Also, I’ll just flatly admit that it’s a lot harder building levels in Unreal than it was “back in the day” with id Tech 2 or Build. I’m learning a lot about how to speed up the process as I go, but it’s still going slowly for now.
That being said, here’s what is currently working in the game: character and movement, bonfire-like save spots, fast travel teleportation, crafting, in-world ingredient harvesting (farming system planned for later, but not confirmed), NPCs, and a mostly-empty world map. There are obviously the othe basics like multiple types of doors, keys for locked versions of the same, item pickups, weapons, etc., but most of them don’t warrant their own mention since they are features that need to be there and aren’t anything special. I’m also around 50% through the base (read: undecorated at this point) level building of the El’Mi Ruins, an old Elven magic research area underground. There may be something worthwhile to find there and additional discoveries for the observant.
Now, what you’ve really come here for: the roadmap for the next minor version, 0.4.0.
-
Finish El’Mi Ruins blockout. (It’ll be discoverable and explorable, but may not be entirely decorated in its final form.)
-
Update Unreal Engine to 5.7 and ACFU to 4.2. (Final updates. This will lock in the final version of the tools that will be used for the game’s development and release.)
-
Finish implementing the base harvestable crops and add some throughout the overworld. (I won’t just randomly place these. They’ll be hand-placed to ensure there arn’t too many of them and they’re in reasonable places. Different materials will be found in different areas.)
The biggest variable will be the updates to Unreal Engine and ACFU. I can’t perdict how much will break in the update and require fixing. Honestly, that’s my logic behind not updating any more after this set of patches. I only want to grab these in particular for a couple really interesting features. (Specifically, the voxel LODs for foliage. It should do some amazing things for long-distance rendering. Good job, Epic. 😘) Unfortunately, there is a significant chance that the updates to the Unreal Engine and ACFU will come with a lot of breakage in existing blueprints and code, forcing me to expend time and energy just getting back to where we are right now.
All things considered, I promise that I’m still making progress and I will do my best to make more regular updates for everyone here and on the Discord server. If you’ve got any thoughts, questions, or suggestions on the development of The Cursed Crown, stop by and chat with us. Thank you to everyone for sticking with me on this long road. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone, and I hope this is the start of a glorious and fruitful year for all of you!