Dev Diary 68 - Demo!

This is the most important update on Colossal Citadels so far! This week the demo is out, and soon you will be able to try the game yourself! It is still might be in a rough state, but I think it’s good enough for now. Don’t hesitate to leave any (constructive and non-constructive) feedback in our Discord. Check out the full post for lots of more notes.

Demo

It will be available to download from Steam it’s page.

When? I don’t know, perhaps even tomorrow! Check the page periodically to see if it’s already avaiable :)

Archive: Discoverable Resources

This is a golden gem of a feature that I came up with a couple of months ago. It both simplifies the game for new players and adds an unique exploration elements.

There are many subtypes of the same resource type: e.g. Limestone, Granite, Marble are all Stones - they will give slightly different stats to items and buildings you produce from it. This is what resource effects look like:

But to a new player, these differences are almost neglegible! Having this choice gives them too many information plus an option paralysis. These effects are ignored and devaluated in player’s eyes as he tries to grasp more general concepts.

The solution is to make these effects discoverable - you will know what it does only when it affects you:

In multiplayer, the information will be shared. This ties greatly with Procedural Resources - ores that are new for every playthrough will be always hidden at first.

Archive: The List

Now there is also a database of all unlocked resource types and their effects. You will see a completion rate that counts all unlocked resources and effects!

It is also planned to list all Understandings and other types of content here.

Tech Recipes

They received some overhaul! As you remember, Weapon Recipes and Building Recipes are Understandings that let you produce new weapon or building types. Getting these is always available to the player, but there is a third, more rare recipe type: Tech Recipes. These can contain a mastery on how to produce some exquisite paper type, air ships, or even mechanical golems!

In this update, I made tech recipes playable. You can even get one in the early game.

Booze

This is a preparation for some future fundamental update regarding morale/spirit of your workers. Alcohol is a consumable that restores Spirit every turn for a little bit. On harder difficulties it will be very helpful, but it will come with it’s own drawbacks.

You will be able to produce some kinds of alcohol from different sources (e.g. Rum from cane, or Ale from wheat) and they will give you slightly different effects.

This makes use of the new consumable system. There might be other consumables for your worker later.

To support that, some other resource types were added, such as pottery, glass vessels, etc.

Colossuses and Fortifications

These are colossal assault creatures/automatons that you build from a really big pile of stone. They are literally walking citadels. Now you can produce them, if you get the correct tech.

Speaking of regular fortifications, now they are much more useful and they provide armor to nearby creatures. Moreover, if you surround your creatures with walls, they will get even more armor!

The armor is not stacked from multiple fortifications, but it’s really useful for defensive gameplay! You should cover your city area with defense bonuses for maximum efficiency.

Further Movements

The demo will now participate in some game festivals! Now I should really work on promotion, but you can contribute too: please tell your friends about the game if you like it!

Full changelog

• lots of new tutorial messages and tutorial improvements
• fortifications overhaul
  • nearby fortifications defense bonus
  • more defense bonus for towers
  • more defense bonus for workers surrounded by walls
• improved a lot of descriptions and updated some icons
• archive
  • unlockable resources
  • unlockable effects
• movement border visualization
• new resources: mirror metal, medicine, cane, cement
• Granite Colossus, Marble Colossus, and Limestone Colossus tech recipes (very expensive and powerful)
• tutorial reset in new game menu
• updates to many understandings
• tech recipes improvements
  • tech recipes are given to the player in the starting pool (only 1)
  • tech recipes give choice of 3 recipes instead of two
• consumables system - now there are resources that can be consumed every turn that are not food
  • alcohol: ale, wine, rum, absinthe
• glass vessels and pottery
• UI improvements
• rebalanced HOARD targets and enemy strength
• houses now give some spirit and health regeneration
• skip subturns via double clicking while subturns are playing
• made The Distortionist’s model cooler
• autosaving is now simpler and it remembers both the beginning and the end of the turns
• bug and feedback reporting
• simplified menus and settings
• localization and naming fixes
  • finished chinese localizations
• worked on limiting the demo content
• fixed A LOT of bugs
• new bugs