We are super excited to release our first snapshot on IndieDB. Please read the instructions bellow before you proceed.
Greetings everyone!
First ever snapshot uploaded to IndieDB! We worked extra hard to add an extra level of polish and we hope the first version will work smoothly for everyone. This is actually snapshot number 3, the first two were uploaded to MegaUpload. Both were a huge step up from the previous and this stays true for snapshot no. 3. But this is just week number two (and two days) of us taking the 2D engine that supported a lot of the game mechanics we wanted and our custom built 3D engine and trying to bring back all the lost mechanics. Transform the engine into a game. So this snapshot is very limited both in scope and polish. Bugs should also be present and any bug report is welcome! But we know that graphics wise things are not yet polished: some textures are not done yet, some are too large, some are too small and some are just placeholder. The GUI is not textured and some panels need to be badly adjusted. We tend to swap textures a lot around between snapshots and this one also features a new lighting model that should give more personality to the world.
To better cope with the 3D transformation for this ambitious project we will release several versions of the game, each building upon the previous. The first version will only feature Creation Mode. The first major milestone for creation mode should be achieved somewhere between snapshot 6 and 12. Snapshots are weekly.
Before we continue let us say a few words about what will come after Creation Mode. In this game you are given a piece of 3D land full of natural riches and perils and it is your job to explore, build and most importantly to survive. You do this by controlling a squad from one of the four races that will be available. Currently we are only focusing on the first race: the dwarves. Using the resources that you find you build up a multi-tiered industry based on both manual labor and workshops.
And of course in Creation Mode you will eventually get to experience all of this without having to care for your dwarves. There is no way to loose in Creation Mode.
There is a long way to go until that point and it all starts with snapshot 3.
The first thing you should do is read our tutorial "Installation & Configuration Instructions". This will give you very basic installation instructions and also explain how to configure the game. The game can be demanding on hardware and default setting are for windowed 720p mode which may not be ideal for everyone. So read up and learn how to change things around and solve some problems!
If everything worked fine you should be greeted with something like this:
But you will probably be greeted by something like this:
The maps are not exactly super small and snapshot 3 unfortunately makes no effort yet to place the camera over something interesting, so you could wind up looking at the horizontal slice of a hill. A quick solution is to zoom out, scroll to somewhere more interesting and zoom back in.
But how does one scroll? Or do anything? A detailed GUI tutorial will be written (and a video added), but right now the interface and keyboard bindings change too often for that. Snapshot 3 has a brand new GUI for creation mode that did not exist in snapshot 2 (only around a week ago). So here is a quick rundown of the controls:
I think that about covers the basic controls. There should be no limits on how big of an area you can select or use a tool upon, but you can't scroll or change camera perspective while selecting (while your right mouse button is still down). Also selection only works for items placed around the map and floors (empty or not), not for walls.
We hope that snapshot 3 will run fine and even with its limited scope will give you a taste of what a fully alive destructible and editable world that is not made out of cubes could offer! And we hope that you will offer us feedback if you feel like it and check out future updates! Can't tell you exactly what snapshot 4 will bring, but it will probably be seasons, more trees and the possibility to dig/engrave floors (and hopefully a lot of extra polish!).
First bug report: dragging a selection and releasing the right mouse button outside the borders of the window can confuse the focusing system and even crash the game.
First suggestions: the launcher will be called "Launcher.exe" (not DHEditor.exe) from now on and a copy of the instructions will be included into the ZIP archive.